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Language origins viewed in spontaneous and interactive vocal rates of human and bonobo infants

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Date
02/04/2019
Author
Oller, D. Kimbrough
Griebel, Ulrike
Iyer, Suneeti Nathani
Jhang, Yuna
Warlaumont, Anne S.
Dale, Rick
Call, Josep
Funder
European Research Council
Grant ID
609819
Keywords
Human evolution
Origin of language
Bonobo
Comparative psychology
Infant directed speech
Evolution of language
Parent-infant interaction
Babbling
BF Psychology
NDAS
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Abstract
From the first months of life, human infants produce “protophones,” speech-like, non-cry sounds, presumed absent, or only minimally present in other apes. But there have been no direct quantitative comparisons to support this presumption. In addition, by 2 months, human infants show sustained face-to-face interaction using protophones, a pattern thought also absent or very limited in other apes, but again, without quantitative comparison. Such comparison should provide evidence relevant to determining foundations of language, since substantially flexible vocalization, the inclination to explore vocalization, and the ability to interact socially by means of vocalization are foundations for language. Here we quantitatively compare data on vocalization rates in three captive bonobo (Pan paniscus) mother–infant pairs with various sources of data from our laboratories on human infant vocalization. Both humans and bonobos produced distress sounds (cries/screams) and laughter. The bonobo infants also produced sounds that were neither screams nor laughs and that showed acoustic similarities to the human protophones. These protophone-like sounds confirm that bonobo infants share with humans the capacity to produce vocalizations that appear foundational for language. Still, there were dramatic differences between the species in both quantity and function of the protophone and protophone-like sounds. The bonobo protophone-like sounds were far less frequent than the human protophones, and the human protophones were far less likely to be interpreted as complaints and more likely as vocal play. Moreover, we found extensive vocal interaction between human infants and mothers, but no vocal interaction in the bonobo mother–infant pairs—while bonobo mothers were physically responsive to their infants, we observed no case of a bonobo mother vocalization directed to her infant. Our cross-species comparison focuses on low- and moderate-arousal circumstances because we reason the roots of language entail vocalization not triggered by excitement, for example, during fighting or intense play. Language appears to be founded in flexible vocalization, used to regulate comfortable social interaction, to share variable affective states at various levels of arousal, and to explore vocalization itself.
Citation
Oller , D K , Griebel , U , Iyer , S N , Jhang , Y , Warlaumont , A S , Dale , R & Call , J 2019 , ' Language origins viewed in spontaneous and interactive vocal rates of human and bonobo infants ' , Frontiers in Psychology , vol. 10 , 729 . https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00729
Publication
Frontiers in Psychology
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00729
ISSN
1664-1078
Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2019 Oller, Griebel, Iyer, Jhang, Warlaumont, Dale and Call. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Description
Funding: The research for this manuscript was funded by Grants R01 DC006099, DC011027, and DC015108 from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, by NSF BCS-1529127, by ERC-Synergy grant SOMICS 609819, by the James S. McDonnell Foundation, and by the Plough Foundation.
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/17420

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