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Meaning and emotion in animal vocalizations
Robert M Seyfarth1, Dorothy L Cheney
1Departments of Psychology and Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA. seyfarth@psych.upenn.edu
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
|February 10, 2004
Summary
Animal vocalizations, like human speech, convey both semantic and emotional information. Research shows vervet monkeys, baboons, and suricates use distinct calls to communicate environmental threats and social status, though without human-like intent.
Area of Science:
- Ethology
- Bioacoustics
- Animal Communication
Background:
- Historically, animal calls were viewed as purely emotional, contrasting with human semantic language.
- Recent research indicates animal vocalizations convey complex information, similar to human speech.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the dual semantic and emotional information encoded in animal vocalizations.
- To review field experiments on primate and suricate alarm calls.
Main Methods:
- Review of field experiments on vervet monkeys, diana monkeys, baboons, and suricates.
- Analysis of acoustic properties and listener responses to alarm calls.
- Examination of vocalizations in social contexts and competitive displays.
Main Results:
- Vervet and diana monkeys use distinct alarm calls for different predators (leopards, eagles, snakes), eliciting specific adaptive responses.
- Suricate alarm calls vary acoustically based on predator type and perceived urgency.
- Baboon vocalizations are individually distinctive, providing information on social events and caller status.
Conclusions:
- Animal vocalizations, like human speech, simultaneously encode semantic and emotional information.
- Listeners extract rich information from animal calls based on acoustic properties and context.
- Unlike human language, animal communication lacks intentionality in conveying information; it's an inadvertent consequence of signaler behavior.