Social basis of vocal interactions in western lowland gorillas (Gorilla g. gorilla).

Lemasson, Alban; Pereira, Hugo; Levréro, Florence

doi:10.1037/com0000105

Cited by 18 publications

(29 citation statements)

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“…Fifth, several studies identified conversational rules respecting key organisational properties guiding primate vocal exchanges such as turn‐taking between callers, call‐overlap avoidance and acoustic matching (e.g. Snowdon & Cleveland, ; Sugiura & Masataka, ; Lemasson, Gandon & Hausberger, ; Bouchet, Koda & Lemasson, ; Lemasson, Pereira & Levréro, ; Levréro et al ., ). For example, Levréro et al .…”

Section: Theories Of the Origins Of Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

The origins of gestures and language: history, current advances and proposed theories

et al. 2019

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Investigating in depth the mechanisms underlying human and non-human primate intentional communication systems (involving gestures, vocalisations, facial expressions and eye behaviours) can shed light on the evolutionary roots of language. Reports on non-human primates, particularly great apes, suggest that gestural communication would have been a crucial prerequisite for the emergence of language, mainly based on the evidence of large communication repertoires and their associated multifaceted nature of intentionality that are key properties of language. Such research fuels important debates on the origins of gestures and language. We review here three non-mutually exclusive processes that can explain mainly great apes' gestural acquisition and development: phylogenetic ritualisation, ontogenetic ritualisation, and learning via social negotiation. We hypothesise the following scenario for the evolutionary origins of gestures: gestures would have appeared gradually through evolution via signal ritualisation following the principle of derived activities, with the key involvement of emotional expression and processing. The increasing level of complexity of socioecological lifestyles and associated daily manipulative activities might then have enabled the acquisition and development of different interactional strategies throughout the life cycle. Many studies support a multimodal origin of language. However, we stress that the origins of language are not only multimodal, but more broadly multicausal. We propose a multicausal theory of language origins which better explains current findings. It postulates that primates' communicative signalling is a complex trait continually shaped by a cost-benefit trade-off of signal production and processing of interactants in relation to four closely interlinked categories of evolutionary and life cycle factors: species, individual and context-related characteristics as well as behaviour and its characteristics. We conclude by suggesting directions for future research to improve our understanding of the evolutionary roots of gestures and language.

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Section: Theories Of the Origins Of Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

The origins of gestures and language: history, current advances and proposed theories

et al. 2019

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“…Dunbar 36 suggested that monkey call exchanges had started to function as a mean to groom-at-distance when the size of group became too large to allocate enough time to physical grooming among all members and maintain close bonds. Indeed, "conversation-like vocal exchanges" occur mainly between two interlocutors that are determined, according to the study species, by their affiliative bonds (humans 37 ; NHP: spider monkeys Ateles geoffroyi 38 , Japanese macaques 39 , pygmy marmosets Cebuella pygmaea 6 , bonobos Pan paniscus 40 ) or by their respective ages (humans 41 ; NHP: common marmosets 42 , western lowland gorillas Gorilla gorilla gorilla 43 , Campbell's monkeys 31 ). In some cases, it was even found that human and nonhuman primates advertise this preferential bond by responding to one another using a matching acoustic structure, a phenomenon known as "vocal convergence" in ethology or "vocal accommodation" in sociolinguistics (humans 44 ; NHP: spider monkeys 38 , Diana monkeys Cercopithecus diana 45 ).…”

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“…To our knowledge, three studies have focused on vocal conversational rules in nonhuman great apes, two of which found support for turn-taking and call overlap avoidance (bonobos 40 ; gorillas 43 ), and one that did not (chimpanzees 46 ). Authors also questioned the fact that these abilities to converse in animals are genetically programmed or, as in humans 47,48 , socially acquired.…”

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“…Here, we aimed to progress this debate by conducting a playback experiment with captive western lowland gorillas of different ages. A recent study, ran on a captive group of western lowland gorillas housed at the ZooParc de Beauval, found that individuals do seem to engage in socially-and temporally-ruled vocal interactions 43 . Vocal interactions typically involve grunts, defined as soft contact calls [53][54][55] that are acoustically individually distinctive 55 .…”

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“…Grunts seem to play a key role in the coordination and peaceful activities, and thus act as a contact call [53][54][55] . During grunt exchanges, temporal rules are respected with an average "response" delay of 0.5 seconds (maximum 3 s) and with obvious call overlap avoidance 43 . Also, preferred interlocutors are non-randomly chosen.…”

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Breaking conversational rules matters to captive gorillas: A playback experiment

Pougnault

Levréro

Mulot

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Across human cultures, conversations are regulated by temporal and social rules. The universality of conversational rules suggests possible biological bases and encourages comparisons with the communicative interactions of nonhuman animals. Unexpectedly, few studies have focused on other great apes despite evidence of proto-conversational rules in monkeys, thus preventing researchers from drawing conclusions on potential evolutionary origins of this behaviour. A previous study showed however that western lowland gorillas engage in soft call interactions that seem temporally-and socially-ruled. Indeed, interactions occurred mainly between individuals close in age who followed a preset response delay, thus preventing call overlap. Here, we experimentally investigated the presence of these rules in a captive gorilla group, using a violation-of-expectation paradigm. Head orientation responses suggest that the respect of response delay matters to subjects, but the importance of the interlocutors' age proximity appeared less clear. The intensity of the response varied with subjects' age in a context-dependent way, supporting a possible role of learning. Our findings support the growing number of studies highlighting the importance of vocal turn-taking in animals and a possible sociogenesis of this ability. The capacity to "converse" might have been a key step in the co-evolution of communication and complex sociality. Despite the diversity of human cultures, some basic conversational rules are respected in all societies and thus appear universal 1. These features are gathered in a so-called "contract of communication" that conversing interlocutors informally agree on 2. The contract takes into account "context relevance" (i.e. the evaluation of the context as pertinent or not to initiate a conversation), "reciprocity" (i.e. the evaluation of both partners as valid interlocutors), and "contract-based temporal rules" (i.e. the respect of a reciprocal exchange of alternating, short, and flexible turns between two or more interlocutors 3 , and speech overlap avoidance). Several authors have questioned the possible biological bases of these conversational rules and have, for several decades, conducted cross-species comparisons to understand their origin and role across animal communication systems 4-7. To facilitate cross species investigations, authors typically distinguish "conversation-like vocal exchanges" from other vocal patterns like isolated calling (one call emitted and no other calls can be heard around, e.g. in red-capped mangabeys Cercocebus torquatus 8), repeated calling (the same caller calls several times in a row, e.g. in Japanese macaques Macaca fuscata 9), disorganized phonoresponses (one individual produces a call, typically an alarm call that triggers calls in an apparent chaotic way from the other group members, e.g. in blue monkeys Cercopithecus mitis stuhlmanni 10), chorusing (two or more individuals overlap their emission of a given call type, e.g. in chimpanzees Pan troglodytes 11) and duetting (two...

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Conversation Among Primate Species

Pougnault¹,

Levréro²,

Lemasson³

2020

The Origins of Language Revisited

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Social basis of vocal interactions in western lowland gorillas (Gorilla g. gorilla).

Cited by 18 publications

References 68 publications

The origins of gestures and language: history, current advances and proposed theories

The origins of gestures and language: history, current advances and proposed theories

Breaking conversational rules matters to captive gorillas: A playback experiment

Conversation Among Primate Species

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