Context-dependent alarm responses in wild vervet monkeys
Abstract
The alarm calls of nonhuman primates are occasionally cited as functionally equivalent to lexical word meaning in human language. Recently, however, it has become increasingly unlikely that one-to-one relations between alarm call structures and predator categories are the default, mainly because many call types are produced in multiple contexts, requiring more complex notions of meaning. For example, male vervet monkeys produce the same alarm calls during encounters with terrestrial predators and neighbouring groups, suggesting that recipients require additional information to attribute meaning to the calls. We empirically tested the hypothesis that vervet monkeys take contextual information into account when responding to each other's alarm calls. In playback experiments, we exposed subjects to recordings of male alarm barks during actual intergroup encounters (predator unlikely) or when there was no intergroup encounter (predator likely). Subjects responded more strongly in the no intergroup encounter situations, typically associated with discovering a hiding predator, measured in terms of startle responses, vigilance behaviour and gazing towards the presumed caller. We discuss the significance of using contextual information for meaning attribution in nonhuman primate communication.
Citation
Deshpande , A , van de Waal , E & Zuberbühler , K 2023 , ' Context-dependent alarm responses in wild vervet monkeys ' , Animal Cognition . https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-023-01767-0
Publication
Animal Cognition
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1435-9448Type
Journal article
Description
Funding: Open access funding provided by University of Neuchâtel. This study was primarily funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation through grants (31003A_166458 and 310030_185324) awarded to KZ and (PP00P3_170624) to EvdW as well as the Branco Weiss Fellowship—Society in Science. AD is additionally supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation through grant (P2NEP3_200190).Collections
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