Chimpanzee vocal communication: what we know from the wild

TY - JOUR

T1 - Chimpanzee vocal communication: what we know from the wild

AU - Slocombe, Katie E.

AU - Lahiff, Nicole J.

AU - Wilke, Claudia

AU - Townsend, Simon W.

N1 - Funding Information: KS was funded by a European Research Council Grant ( REC-CoG2016_724608 ). SWT, NL and CW were funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant number: PP00P3_198912 (to SWT) and 315130_192620 (to SWT, NL and CW). Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Authors

PY - 2022/8/1

Y1 - 2022/8/1

N2 - Vocal communication plays a vital role in the daily lives of our closest living relatives, chimpanzees. Unpacking the adaptive function of vocalisations, and the cognitive mechanisms underlying their production and comprehension is not only crucial for understanding chimpanzee behaviour, but also for inferring the capacities of our last common ancestors. Here, we review how observational and experimental methods have advanced our understanding of the vocal production and comprehension of wild chimpanzees. We discuss the impact of social and ecological factors on chimpanzee vocal communication, and review the inroads that have been made in elucidating the cognitive processes underpinning call production. We highlight approaches that may offer substantial future advances in knowledge and argue that whilst challenging to collect, data from wild populations is critical to building a comprehensive and accurate understanding of the communicative and cognitive abilities of our closest living relatives, and to tracing the evolutionary roots of human language.

AB - Vocal communication plays a vital role in the daily lives of our closest living relatives, chimpanzees. Unpacking the adaptive function of vocalisations, and the cognitive mechanisms underlying their production and comprehension is not only crucial for understanding chimpanzee behaviour, but also for inferring the capacities of our last common ancestors. Here, we review how observational and experimental methods have advanced our understanding of the vocal production and comprehension of wild chimpanzees. We discuss the impact of social and ecological factors on chimpanzee vocal communication, and review the inroads that have been made in elucidating the cognitive processes underpinning call production. We highlight approaches that may offer substantial future advances in knowledge and argue that whilst challenging to collect, data from wild populations is critical to building a comprehensive and accurate understanding of the communicative and cognitive abilities of our closest living relatives, and to tracing the evolutionary roots of human language.

KW - Chimpanzees

KW - Pan troglodytes

KW - Playback experiments

KW - Vocal communication

KW - Vocal comprehension

KW - Vocal production

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85133217293&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.cobeha.2022.101171

DO - 10.1016/j.cobeha.2022.101171

M3 - Review article

AN - SCOPUS:85133217293

SN - 2352-1546

VL - 46

JO - Current opinion in behavioral sciences

JF - Current opinion in behavioral sciences

M1 - 101171

ER -