The function and mechanisms underlying baboon ‘contact’ barks

Cheney, Dorothy L.; Seyfarth, Robert M.; Palombit, Ryne A.

doi:10.1006/anbe.1996.0193

Cited by 105 publications

(131 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…They also do not resemble contact calls used by mothers and their offspring because the groups we observed did not consist of mothers and calves. The most similar vocal interactions to the those described here are those found in fission -fusion societies of primates, where individuals counter-call to stay in spatial proximity [40,41]. Because dolphins in St Andrews Bay were not in visual contact and no other exchanges have been recorded for on average 19 min before our observed joins, the observed dolphin encounters were in fact of individuals that had not been in contact.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Bottlenose dolphins exchange signature whistles when meeting at sea

Quick

Janik

2012

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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The bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncatus, is one of very few animals that, through vocal learning, can invent novel acoustic signals and copy whistles of conspecifics. Furthermore, receivers can extract identity information from the invented part of whistles. In captivity, dolphins use such signature whistles while separated from the rest of their group. However, little is known about how they use them at sea. If signature whistles are the main vehicle to transmit identity information, then dolphins should exchange these whistles in contexts where groups or individuals join. We used passive acoustic localization during focal boat follows to observe signature whistle use in the wild. We found that stereotypic whistle exchanges occurred primarily when groups of dolphins met and joined at sea. A sequence analysis verified that most of the whistles used during joins were signature whistles. Whistle matching or copying was not observed in any of the joins. The data show that signature whistle exchanges are a significant part of a greeting sequence that allows dolphins to identify conspecifics when encountering them in the wild.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Bottlenose dolphins exchange signature whistles when meeting at sea

Quick

Janik

2012

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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“…Playback experiments suggest, however, that baboons call primarily with respect to their own separation from the group, not their audience's. They "answer" others when they themselves are separated, and they often fail to respond even to the calls of their offspring when they themselves are in close proximity to other group members (42,43). In this respect, the vocalizations of monkeys are very different from human speech, in which we routinely take into account our audience's beliefs and knowledge during conversation.…”

Section: Attribution Of Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

Extent and limits of cooperation in animals

Cheney

2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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105

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Individuals in many animal species are strongly motivated to form close social bonds and to attend to the social interactions of others. Some animals may also recognize other individuals’ intentions and simple mental states. Such curiosity appears to be adaptive, because it enables observers to learn about others’ status and relationships and to anticipate future events without direct participation. However, many questions remain unresolved. In particular, it remains unclear whether animals keep track of favors given and received when interacting with others, and whether they rely on memory of past cooperative acts when anticipating future ones. Primates appear to possess many of the cognitive abilities required for human-like contingent cooperation. However, most investigations of captive primates have indicated that cooperation is seldom contingency-based, and that interactions are not influenced by inequity aversion or sensitivity to cheaters. In contrast, several experiments with nonprimates have found that animals can take into account recent interactions when supporting others, suggesting that the apparent rarity of contingent cooperation in primates may not stem from cognitive constraints. Instead, individuals may tolerate short-term inequities in favors given and received because most cooperation occurs among long-term reciprocating partners.

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“…The barks form an acoustically distinct class of vocalizations that cannot be confused, either spectographically or by ear, with other calls in the baboons' repertoire. Because contact barks are often temporally clumped, with many individuals giving calls at roughly the same time (Cheney, Seyfarth, & Palombit, 1996), the baboons appear to be answering one another. Like the loud calls of many other nonhuman primates (e.g., Boinski, 1991;Byrne, 1981;Kudo, 1987), baboon barks seem to serve as "contact" calls that maintain group cohesion, initiate and set the direction of the group's movement, and prevent individuals from becoming lost.…”

Section: Baboon Contact Barksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavioral mechanisms underlying vocal communication in nonhuman primates

Seyfarth

Cheney

1997

Animal Learning & Behavior

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In the wild, nonhuman primate vocalizations signal the presence of different predators, provide information about the group's location and movement, facilitate friendly interactions, and lead to reconciliation between individuals who have recently exchanged aggression. Current research examines the mechanisms that underlie such communication. Playback experiments demonstrate that subjects treat vocalizations as semantic signals, in the sense that they compare signals according to their referents and not just their acoustic properties. Results provide no evidence, however, that subjects recognize one another's mental states. Calls that provide information about the group's location or movement are given by baboons only when they themselves are lost; individuals at the group's center apparently do not call to inform peripheral animals of their location. Calls that lead to reconciliation are best explained by assuming that callers and recipients have learned, through experience, that a vocalization is rarely followed by aggression and often followed by friendly behavior. The inability of animals to recognize what other individuals know, believe, or desire constitutes a fundamental difference between nonhuman primate vocal communication and human language.

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The function and mechanisms underlying baboon ‘contact’ barks

Cited by 105 publications

References 26 publications

Bottlenose dolphins exchange signature whistles when meeting at sea

Bottlenose dolphins exchange signature whistles when meeting at sea

Extent and limits of cooperation in animals

Behavioral mechanisms underlying vocal communication in nonhuman primates

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