Laterality in the gestural communication of wild chimpanzees
Abstract
e examined hand preference in the intentional gestural communication of wild chimpanzees in the Budongo forest, Uganda. Individuals showed some tendency to be lateralized, although less than has been reported for begging and pointing gestures in captivity; on average, their absolute bias was around 0.25 (where 1.0 represents complete right- or left-hand use and 0.0 represents no bias). Lateralization was incomplete even in individuals with major manual disabilities. Where individuals had a stronger preference, this was more often toward the right hand; moreover, as age increased, the direction (but not the extent) of hand preference shifted toward the right. While the gestural repertoire as a whole was largely employed ambilateraly, object-manipulation gestures showed a strong right-hand bias.
Citation
Hobaiter , C & Byrne , R W 2013 , ' Laterality in the gestural communication of wild chimpanzees ' , Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences , vol. 1288 , pp. 9-16 . https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.12041
Publication
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0077-8923Type
Journal article
Rights
This is an author version of this article. The published version © 2013 New York Academy of Sciences is available from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com
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