Serial Calling as a Mediator of Interaction Processes: Crying in Primates

Todt, Dietmar

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-73769-5_6

Cited by 29 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Similarly, the nearuniversal emergence of stranger-wariness as a frequent cause of crying in the second half of the ®rst year (Konner, 1972;Ricciuti, 1974) may be taken as evidence that crying functions to reunite the infant with its primary caregiver in preference to a substitute. The allomothering hypothesis is more easily applied to nonhuman primates with relaxed social bonds and considerably more allomothering available to infants than in humans (Todt, 1988). Although the primary function of crying in humans appears to be the elicitation of care, it is likely that crying also serves a secondary function of expressing preferences for one caregiver over another, consistent with Todt's allomothering hypothesis.…”

Section: Secondary Functions Of Crying In Humans and Related Speciesmentioning

confidence: 83%

An ethological analysis of human infant crying: Answering Tinbergen's four questions

Zeifman

2001

Developmental Psychobiology

172

160

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The proximate causes, survival value, ontogeny, and evolutionary history of human infant crying are examined. Experiments and field observations involving infant distress vocalizations and begging calls in avian, mammalian, and nonhuman primate species are considered, as are ethnographic records of infant care and responses to crying in nonindustrialized societies. It is argued that human infant crying evolved as a primarily acoustic, graded signal, that it is a fairly reliable, if imperfect, indicator of need for parental care and that its primary function is to promote parental caregiving. Selection pressures that may have shaped the evolution of crying and its potential for corruption through dishonesty also are discussed.

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Section: Secondary Functions Of Crying In Humans and Related Speciesmentioning

confidence: 83%

An ethological analysis of human infant crying: Answering Tinbergen's four questions

Zeifman

2001

Developmental Psychobiology

172

160

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“…In many cases, males will return infants to their mother either when the mother attempts to retrieve the infant or when the infant attempts to return to its mother [33]. Some males, however, restrain the infant for long periods of time, causing considerable distress for the infant and the mother [33,34]. In such cases, the screams may also exhibit a more noisy structure, similar to the one depicted in figure 1a.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Overview of the Barbary Macaque, Macaca sylvanus, Vocal Repertoire

Fischer¹,

Hammerschmidt²

2002

IJFP

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This study provides an overview of the vocalizations of Barbary macaques, Macaca sylvanus. Spectrographic displays of calls are presented along with photographs of the accompanying facial gestures. We give a general description of the contexts in which the different calls are uttered, with special regard to the age and sex of the caller. The vocal repertoire of Barbary macaques mainly consists of screams, shrill barks, geckers, low-frequency pants and grunts, with gradation occurring within and between call types. The spectrograms document that typically, Barbary macaques produce series of several consecutive calls. The influence of habitat, social structure and phylogenetic descent on the morphology of the repertoire and call diversity are discussed in comparison to other species.

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“…Indeed, functional effects like these might not be uncommon as demonstrated by the widespread pattern of loud crying and screaming by young infants of many species, including humans and many nonhuman primates, when denied nursing access or other physical comforts or when otherwise subdued or frustrated in their goals ͑e.g., Grimm, 1967;Ostwald, 1972;Lester and Boukydis, 1985;Todt, 1988;Owren et al, 1992;Hammerschmidt et al, 1994;Appleby et al, 1999;Patel and Owren, 2007͒. In these situations, young individuals who are otherwise impotent to exert their will on others resort to loud vocal protests.…”

Section: B Alternative Functions Of Distress Screamsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asymmetries in the individual distinctiveness and maternal recognition of infant contact calls and distress screams in baboons

Rendall

Notman

Owren

2009

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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A key component of nonhuman primate vocal communication is the production and recognition of clear cues to social identity that function in the management of these species' individualistic social relationships. However, it remains unclear how ubiquitous such identity cues are across call types and age-sex classes and what the underlying vocal production mechanisms responsible might be. This study focused on two structurally distinct call types produced by infant baboons in contexts that place a similar functional premium on communicating clear cues to caller identity: ͑1͒ contact calls produced when physically separated from, and attempting to relocate, mothers and ͑2͒ distress screams produced when aggressively attacked by other group members. Acoustic analyses and field experiments were conducted to examine individual differentiation in single vocalizations of each type and to test mothers' ability to recognize infant calls. Both call types showed statistically significant individual differentiation, but the magnitude of the differentiation was substantially higher in contact calls. Mothers readily discriminated own-offspring contact calls from those of familiar but unrelated infants, but did not do so when it came to distress screams. Several possible explanations for these asymmetries in call differentiation and recognition are considered.

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Serial Calling as a Mediator of Interaction Processes: Crying in Primates

Cited by 29 publications

References 47 publications

An ethological analysis of human infant crying: Answering Tinbergen's four questions

An ethological analysis of human infant crying: Answering Tinbergen's four questions

An Overview of the Barbary Macaque, Macaca sylvanus, Vocal Repertoire

Asymmetries in the individual distinctiveness and maternal recognition of infant contact calls and distress screams in baboons

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