A TEAM of researchers has developed a “dictionary,” an automatic tracking system and a behavior graph to help people understand animal behaviors, Shenzhen Economic Daily reported.

Related research results were published on the journal Nature Communications on Thursday. The team was led by Wang Liping and Wei Pengfei from Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Wang said that most animal filming available now provides two-dimensional information based on images taken by a single lens. However, animals live in a three-dimensional space so the two-dimensional information might be misleading and cause the invisible information to be blocked by the animals’ bodies.

In order to prevent the loss of information, the team used a method combining machine learning and three-dimensional reconstruction to build an automatic 3D tracking system.

The system uses multiple cameras to gather 3D data of the animals. Moreover, the system doesn’t need people to help produce related data, according to Wei.

If we take animal behavior as a metaphor for human language, an animal’s posture is the most basic letter while the words it forms are their meaningful actions, and then ultimately you have their behavior spectrum, a sentence.

The team formed an “alphabet table” based on animal behaviors. Then they created a behavior “dictionary” by digging out the sequence of postures with similar arrangement patterns.

The “dictionary” so far has been applied in research on rats with autism; a humpback rat might experience autism.

At present, more information on different species has been collected for updating the behavior graph. The team has conducted research on nonhuman primates and dogs, and the graph will be used in experimental animals such as pigs in the future, according to the report.

It is said that the team has received cooperation invitations from more than 20 domestic and foreign scientific research institutions. (Wang Jingli)