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Functional flexibility in wild bonobo vocal behaviour

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Clay_2015_PeerJ_Functional_CC.pdf (5.312Mb)
Date
04/08/2015
Author
Clay, Susanna Elizabeth Valerie
Archbold, Jahmaira
Zuberbuehler, Klaus
Keywords
Vocal development
Speech evolution
Great ape
Pre-linguistic infant
Emotion valence
Vocal flexibility
Primate
Language evolution
Protophone
QL Zoology
GN Anthropology
BF Psychology
NDAS
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Abstract
A shared principle in the evolution of language and the development of speech is the emergence of functional flexibility, the capacity of vocal signals to express a range of emotional states independently of context and biological function. Functional flexibility has recently been demonstrated in the vocalisations of pre-linguistic human infants, which has been contrasted to the functionally fixed vocal behaviour of non-human primates. Here, we revisited the presumed chasm in functional flexibility between human and non-human primate vocal behaviour, with a study on our closest living primate relatives, the bonobo (Pan paniscus). We found that wild bonobos use a specific call type (the “peep”) across a range of contexts that cover the full valence range (positive-neutral-negative) in much of their daily activities, including feeding, travel, rest, aggression, alarm, nesting and grooming. Peeps were produced in functionally flexible ways in some contexts, but not others. Crucially, calls did not vary acoustically between neutral and positive contexts, suggesting that recipients take pragmatic information into account to make inferences about call meaning. In comparison, peeps during negative contexts were acoustically distinct. Our data suggest that the capacity for functional flexibility has evolutionary roots that predate the evolution of human speech. We interpret this evidence as an example of an evolutionary early transition away from fixed vocal signalling towards functional flexibility.
Citation
Clay , S E V , Archbold , J & Zuberbuehler , K 2015 , ' Functional flexibility in wild bonobo vocal behaviour ' , PeerJ . https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1124
Publication
PeerJ
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1124
ISSN
2167-8359
Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2015 Clay et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Description
This research was financially supported by the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, the National Geographic Society: Committee for Research and Exploration Grant, the British Academy Small Research Grant, the European Union Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development, and demonstration under grant agreement 283871 and private donors associated with the British Academy and the Leakey Foundation.
Collections
  • University of St Andrews Research
URL
https://peerj.com/articles/1124/#supplemental-information
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/7539

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