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Social bonding drives vocal exchanges in Bonobos
Florence Levréro1, Sonia Touitou2, Julia Frédet2
1Université de Lyon/Saint-Etienne, Equipe Neuro-Ethologie Sensorielle, Neuro-PSI, CNRS UMR 9197, Saint-Etienne, France. florence.levrero@univ-st-etienne.fr.
Scientific Reports
|January 26, 2019
Summary
Great apes, like bonobos, spontaneously use primitive conversation rules guided by social bonds. This finding fills a gap in understanding primate vocal communication and its link to human speech origins.
Area of Science:
- Primate communication
- Evolution of language
- Bioacoustics
Background:
- The origin of human speech remains a significant scientific debate.
- Proto-conversational rules are observed in monkeys but not well-documented in great apes.
- Understanding great ape vocal interactions is key to tracing linguistic evolution.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate spontaneous vocal interactions in captive bonobos within a peaceful context.
- To determine if bonobo vocal interactions follow temporal and social rules.
- To identify factors influencing vocal sharing rates in bonobo dyads.
Main Methods:
- Observing spontaneous dyadic vocal interactions in bonobos during peaceful social contexts.
- Analyzing vocal interactions for call overlap avoidance and inter-call intervals.
- Quantifying vocal sharing rates and correlating them with social and individual characteristics.
Main Results:
- Bonobo vocal interactions exhibited call overlap avoidance and short inter-call intervals, indicating temporal rules.
- Bonobos preferentially responded to conspecifics with whom they shared close social bonds.
- Vocal sharing rate was primarily explained by age difference, not sex, kinship, or spatial/vocal affinity.
Conclusions:
- Great apes spontaneously employ primitive conversation rules, influenced by social bonds.
- Coordinated vocal interactions are present across monkeys, apes, and humans, highlighting a universal primate trait.
- This research bridges a gap in primate vocal communication, offering insights into the evolution of human speech.
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