Studying audience effects in animals: what we can learn from human language research

Coppinger, Brittany A.; Cannistraci, Ryan A.; Karaman, Ferhat; Kyle, Steven C.; Hobson, Elizabeth A.; Freeberg, Todd M.; Hay, Jessica F.

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2016.12.020

Cited by 21 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 59 publications

(66 reference statements)

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“…audience effect and interactional components, e.g. Fröhlich et al ., ; Coppinger, Cannistraci & Karaman, ) and of the communication signals (e.g. ICI and type of sensory modalities involved).…”

Section: Gestures: a Key Element In The Emergence 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: Gestures: a Key Element In The Emergence Of Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

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

et al. 2019

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“…There are increasingly detailed accounts of animals altering their behaviour in response to specific aspects of the relationships between potential interaction partners and observing bystanders (vervet monkeys: Borgeaud et al 2017;baboons: Wittig et al 2007;chimpanzees: Wittig et al 2014; Kaburu and Newton-Fisher 2016;Mielke et al 2018). Other examples of this flexibility in animal behaviour derive from studies of animal communication, where audience effects have been reported in various species (chimpanzees: Crockford et al 2017; domestic chicken: Evans and Marler 1994; for reviews see : Zuberbühler 2008;Coppinger et al 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predictability and variability of association patterns in sooty mangabeys

Mielke

Crockford

Wittig

2020

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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In many group-living animal species, interactions take place in changing social environments, increasing the information processing necessary to optimize social decision-making. Communities with different levels of spatial and temporal cohesion should differ in the predictability of association patterns. While the focus in this context has been on primate species with high fission-fusion dynamics, little is known about the variability of association patterns in species with large groups and high temporal cohesion, where group size and the environment create unstable subgroups. Here, we use sooty mangabeys as a model species to test predictability on two levels: on the subgroup level and on the dyadic level. Our results show that the entirety of group members surrounding an individual is close to random in sooty mangabeys; making it unlikely that individuals can predict the exact composition of bystanders for any interaction. At the same time, we found predictable dyadic associations based on assortative mixing by age, kinship, reproductive state in females, and dominance rank; potentially providing individuals with the ability to partially predict which dyads can be usually found together. These results indicate that animals living in large cohesive groups face different challenges from those with high fission-fusion dynamics, by having to adapt to fast-changing social contexts, while unable to predict who will be close-by in future interactions. At the same time, entropy measures on their own are unable to capture the predictability of association patterns in these groups. Significance statement While the challenges created by high fission-fusion dynamics in animal social systems and their impact on the evolution of cognitive abilities are relatively well understood, many species live in large groups without clear spatio-temporal subgrouping. Nonetheless, they show remarkable abilities in considering their immediate social environment when making social decisions. Measures of entropy of association patterns have recently been proposed to measure social complexity across species. Here, we evaluate suggested entropy measures in sooty mangabeys. The high entropy of their association patterns would indicate that subgroup composition is largely random, not allowing individuals to prepare for future social environments. However, the existence of strong assortativity on the dyadic level indicates that individuals can still partially predict who will be around whom, even if the overall audience composition might be unclear. Entropy alone, therefore, captures social complexity incompletely, especially in species facing fast-changing social environments.

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“…Accordingly, signallers may be sensitive to the presence and characteristics of receivers and may exhibit behavioural flexibility by initiating, inhibiting, or varying the rate or nature of signal production. Such 'audience effects' have mainly been described for vocal and visual signals 6 . In contrast, audience effects on the transmission of olfactory signals remain poorly studied, even though scent represents the main modality of communication in most mammals 5,7 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Males are more sensitive to their audience than females when scent-marking in the redfronted lemur

Peckre

Michiels

Socias‐Martínez

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Audience effects, i.e. changes in behaviour caused by the presence of conspecifics, have rarely been studied in the context of olfactory communication, even though they may provide important insights into the functions of olfactory signals. Functional sex differences in scent-marking behaviours are common and influenced by the social system. To date, patterns of functional sex differences in scent-marking behaviours remain unknown in species without overt dominance relationships. We investigated sex differences in intra-group audience effects on anogenital scent-marking in a wild population of redfronted lemurs (Eulemur rufifrons) by performing focal scent-marking observations. With a combination of generalised linear mixed models and exponential random graph models, we found different audience effects in both sexes. Males were overall more sensitive than females to their audience. Only males seemed to be sensitive to the presence of both members of the opposite sex and same-sex conspecifics in the audience. Females were only moderately sensitive to the presence of other females in the audience. This study offers a potential behavioural pattern associated with anogenital scent-marking that seem to differ from those described for species exhibiting female dominance, supporting the notion that the social systems co-varies with scent-marking behaviours and scent-complexity in strepsirrhines.

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Studying audience effects in animals: what we can learn from human language research

Cited by 21 publications

References 59 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

Predictability and variability of association patterns in sooty mangabeys

Males are more sensitive to their audience than females when scent-marking in the redfronted lemur

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