TY - JOUR
T1 - Vocal-visual combinations in wild chimpanzees
AU - Mine, Joseph G.
AU - Wilke, Claudia
AU - Zulberti, Chiara
AU - Behjati, Melika
AU - Bosshard, Alexandra B.
AU - Stoll, Sabine
AU - Machanda, Zarin P.
AU - Manser, Andri
AU - Slocombe, Katie E.
AU - Townsend, Simon W.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.
PY - 2024/10/11
Y1 - 2024/10/11
N2 - Living organisms throughout the animal kingdom habitually communicate with multi-modal signals that use multiple sensory channels. Such composite signals vary in their communicative function, as well as the extent to which they are recombined freely. Humans typically display complex forms of multi-modal communication, yet the evolution of this capacity remains unknown. One of our two closest living relatives, chimpanzees, also produce multi-modal combinations and therefore may offer a valuable window into the evolutionary roots of human communication. However, a currently neglected step in describing multi-modal systems is to disentangle non-random combinations from those that occur simply by chance. Here we aimed to provide a systematic quantification of communicative behaviour in our closest living relatives, describing non-random combinations produced across auditory and visual modalities. Through recording the behaviour of wild chimpanzees from the Kibale forest, Uganda we generated the first repertoire of non-random combined vocal and visual components. Using collocation analysis, we identified more than 100 vocal-visual combinations which occurred more frequently than expected by chance. We also probed how multi-modal production varied in the population, finding no differences in the number of visual components produced with vocalisations as a function of age, sex or rank. As expected, chimpanzees produced more visual components alongside vocalizations during longer vocalization bouts, however, this was only the case for some vocalization types, not others. We demonstrate that chimpanzees produce a vast array of combined vocal and visual components, exhibiting a hitherto underappreciated level of multi-modal complexity.
AB - Living organisms throughout the animal kingdom habitually communicate with multi-modal signals that use multiple sensory channels. Such composite signals vary in their communicative function, as well as the extent to which they are recombined freely. Humans typically display complex forms of multi-modal communication, yet the evolution of this capacity remains unknown. One of our two closest living relatives, chimpanzees, also produce multi-modal combinations and therefore may offer a valuable window into the evolutionary roots of human communication. However, a currently neglected step in describing multi-modal systems is to disentangle non-random combinations from those that occur simply by chance. Here we aimed to provide a systematic quantification of communicative behaviour in our closest living relatives, describing non-random combinations produced across auditory and visual modalities. Through recording the behaviour of wild chimpanzees from the Kibale forest, Uganda we generated the first repertoire of non-random combined vocal and visual components. Using collocation analysis, we identified more than 100 vocal-visual combinations which occurred more frequently than expected by chance. We also probed how multi-modal production varied in the population, finding no differences in the number of visual components produced with vocalisations as a function of age, sex or rank. As expected, chimpanzees produced more visual components alongside vocalizations during longer vocalization bouts, however, this was only the case for some vocalization types, not others. We demonstrate that chimpanzees produce a vast array of combined vocal and visual components, exhibiting a hitherto underappreciated level of multi-modal complexity.
KW - Animal communication
KW - Chimpanzees
KW - Language evolution
KW - Multimodal communication
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85206382186&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s00265-024-03523-x
DO - 10.1007/s00265-024-03523-x
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85206382186
SN - 0340-5443
VL - 78
JO - Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
JF - Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
IS - 10
M1 - 108
ER -