Spontaneous tempo and rhythmic entrainment in a bonobo (Pan paniscus)

The emergence of speech and music in the human species represent major evolutionary transitions that enabled the use of complex, temporally structured acoustic signals to coordinate social interaction. While the fundamental capacity for temporal coordination with complex acoustic signals has been shown in a few distantly related species, the extent to which nonhuman primates exhibit sensitivity to auditory rhythms remains controversial. In Experiment 1, we assessed spontaneous motor tempo and tempo matching in a bonobo (Pan paniscus), in the context of a social drumming interaction. In Experiment 2, the bonobo spontaneously entrained and synchronized her drum strikes within a range around her spontaneous motor tempo. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the evolution of acoustic communication builds upon fundamental neurodynamic mechanisms that can be found in a wide range of species, and are recruited for social interactions.