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Recent results on Colobus monkey and chimpanzee alarm calls| old_uid | 12162 |
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| title | Recent results on Colobus monkey and chimpanzee alarm calls |
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| start_date | 2013/03/05 |
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| schedule | 16h |
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| online | no |
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| summary | Research on colobus monkeys: I will discuss the work I have carried out with two species of colobus monkeys, the Guereza and King colobus, in light of the existing data on functional reference and zoo-syntax in other primate species. We conducted classic predator playback experiments in which we played back predators' vocalizations (leopard growls or eagle shrieks) and recorded the monkeys' responses. We found that after hearing predator sounds the colobus monkeys reacted with two basic alarm call types, snorts and acoustically variable roaring phrases. Neither call type was exclusively given to one predator type but there were striking regularities in the sequence order of calls. Leopard growls usually elicited long calling bouts consisting of a snort followed by few roaring phrases whereas eagles elicited short calling bouts consisting of long sequences usually not preceded by snorts but many roaring phrases. Further work revealed that these sequences appeared meaningful to recipients, who looked up in a significantly larger proportion of trials conducted with eagle alarms compared to leopard alarms. Although this could mean that recipients use the basic composition of these sequences to base call recognition on, I will discuss another possible way in which these monkeys may differentiate the context of calling, based on a recent study that revealed that sequence composition in the first few seconds may be crucial for context discrimination.
Research on chimpanzee alarm calls: The degree of intentionality underlying signal production in non-human primates is another critical issue that is central to theories of how human language has evolved. To date, this has predominantly been studied in gesture use of great apes, while comparable work on great ape vocal communication is currently lacking. I will discuss the results of my recent work carried out in collaboration with Dr. Katie Slocombe, in which we investigated the intentionality of chimpanzee alarm calls. We presented wild chimpanzees with a python model and found that the production of two types of alarm calls exhibited the same characteristics used to establish intentionality in their gestural communication. |
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| responsibles | Chemla, Schlenker |
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