A gestural repertoire of 1- to 2-year-old human children: in search of the ape gestures

Abstract

When we compare human gestures to those of other apes, it looks at first like there is nothing much to compare at all. In adult humans, gestures are thought to be a window into the thought processes accompanying language, and sign languages are equal to spoken language with all of its features. Some research firmly emphasises the differences between human gestures and those of other apes; however, the question about whether there are any commonalities is rarely investigated, and has mostly been confined to pointing gestures. The gestural repertoires of nonhuman ape species have been carefully studied and described with regard to their form and function-but similar approaches are much rarer in the study of human gestures. This paper applies the methodology commonly used in the study of nonhuman ape gestures to the gestural communication of human children in their second year of life. We recorded (n = 13) children's gestures in a natural setting with peers and caregivers in Germany and Uganda. Children employed 52 distinct gestures, 46 (89%) of which are present in the chimpanzee repertoire. Like chimpanzees, they used them both singly, and in sequences, and employed individual gestures flexibly towards different goals.

Gesture Use in Communication between Mothers and Offspring in Wild Orang-Utans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii) from the Sabangau Peat-Swamp Forest, Borneo

“…Three of these have been described in the gestural repertoires of captive populations, and the two gesture types new to descriptions of orang-utan gesture use have been described in other ape repertoires (see Table IV and Byrne et al 2017). Our criteria for inclusion as a case of gesture are strict, and can lead to the exclusion of 20-40% of potential cases (e.g., Genty et al 2009;Kersken et al 2018). Given our small dataset we suggest that these gesture types, and others that remained unobserved, would likely meet criteria for inclusion with additional observations, also extending the total gestural repertoire size.…”

“…Despite the limitations on the number and type of calls that could be coded, they still represented almost double the number of gestural signals recorded. (The coding of gestural signals typically excludes 20-40% of potential cases where they do not meet the criteria for intentional use; see, e.g., Genty et al 2009;Kersken et al 2018. ) As a result we felt that it was important to include the vocal data to highlight the importance of vocal signals in orang-utan communication, but we are cautious in our analysis and interpretation of them..…”

Primates are living links to our past: The contribution of comparative studies with wild vervet monkeys to the field of social cognition

“…Furthermore, a recent study compared gestures between 1-to 2-year-old human children, and juvenile and adult chimpanzees (Kersken, Gómez, Liszkowski, Soldati, & Hobaiter , 2018) (Kendon, 2017), theories that advocate a multimodal origin of human spoken language seem to be a promising approach. Moreover, the coupling of gestures and vocalizations is well documented, bearing the question of a potential multimodal origin of human speech where gestures and speech evolved conjointly without one modality taken over another (McNeill, 1992).…”

Developmental perspectives on primate gesture: 100 years in the making

“…The papers in New Empirical Approaches (Bard et al 2017;Pika and Fröhlich 2018;Lamaury et al 2017;Kersken et al 2018), present new data on gesture in juvenile primates (both human and non-human). They introduce new theoretical framings and approaches for studying gesture by looking at different modalities (e.g., tactile) or conducting strictly-aligned cross-species comparative studies (with human children or monkeys).…”