St Andrews Research Repository

St Andrews University Home
View Item 
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  • Register / Login
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

Skin temperature changes in wild chimpanzees upon hearing vocalizations of conspecifics

Thumbnail
View/Open
ZuberbeuhlerRSOS_160816_CC.pdf (1.167Mb)
Date
01/2017
Author
Dezecache, Guillaume
Zuberbuhler, Klaus
Davila-Ross, Marina
Dahl, Christoph D.
Keywords
Infra-red thermography
Skin temperature
Wild chimpanzees
Vocalizations
Emotions
BF Psychology
DAS
Metadata
Show full item record
Abstract
A growing trend of research using infra-red thermography (IRT) has shown that changes in skin temperature, associated with activity of the autonomic nervous system, can be reliably detected in human and non-human animals. A contact-free method, IRT provides the opportunity to uncover emotional states in free-ranging animals during social interactions. Here, we measured nose and ear temperatures of wild chimpanzees of Budongo Forest, Uganda, when exposed to naturally occurring vocalizations of conspecifics. We found a significant temperature decrease over the nose after exposure to conspecifics’ vocalizations, whereas we found a corresponding increase for ear temperature. Our study suggests that IRT can be used in wild animals to quantify changes in emotional states in response to the diversity of vocalizations, their functional significance and acoustical characteristics. We hope that it will contribute to more research on physiological changes associated with social interactions in wild animals.
Citation
Dezecache , G , Zuberbuhler , K , Davila-Ross , M & Dahl , C D 2017 , ' Skin temperature changes in wild chimpanzees upon hearing vocalizations of conspecifics ' , Royal Society Open Science , vol. 4 , 160816 . https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160816
Publication
Royal Society Open Science
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160816
ISSN
2054-5703
Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2017 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
Description
The authors are grateful to the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland for providing core funding to the Budongo Conservation Field Station. The research was supported by a Fyssen fellowship awarded to GD, funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration (grant agreement no 283871), and the Swiss National Science Foundation (PZ00P3_154741) awarded to CDD.
Collections
  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/10210

Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Advanced Search

Browse

All of RepositoryCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunderThis CollectionBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunder

My Account

Login

Open Access

To find out how you can benefit from open access to research, see our library web pages and Open Access blog. For open access help contact: openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Accessibility

Read our Accessibility statement.

How to submit research papers

The full text of research papers can be submitted to the repository via Pure, the University's research information system. For help see our guide: How to deposit in Pure.

Electronic thesis deposit

Help with deposit.

Repository help

For repository help contact: Digital-Repository@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Give Feedback

Cookie policy

This site may use cookies. Please see Terms and Conditions.

Usage statistics

COUNTER-compliant statistics on downloads from the repository are available from the IRUS-UK Service. Contact us for information.

© University of St Andrews Library

University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013532.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter