Animal VS Human communication Flashcards
What does the evidence say?
- Primates in the wild
- Alarm call for snakes, eagles + leopards in vervet Monkeys determined by carefu examination
- clearly referential calls not just beh reflex
- record the sounds + play them back in diff context
- use arbitrary signs to communicate (sound cant be inferred to object unless you know its meaning)
Attemps to teach primates to speak -vicks chimp
-Vicks chimpanzee
-raised in family alongside a child
- intensive speech therapy
-could say 4 words: mama, papa, cup, up
-monkeys natural env may force them to have simple communication systems
-monkeys show signs of displacement (Hockett) when raised in human env by referring to objects not physically present at that time
Teaching monkeys to speak- anatomical difficulties
- Don’t have right vocal anatomy
-cant control their facial muscles (tongue)
-Monkeys trachea is higher so can’t produce vowels like humans
-Humans have bread tongue that curves down throat - chimps is flat - TO find out it they can learn complex communication system teach them non- oral lang
Attemps to teach primates sign lang
- intensive practice + training with modified American sign Lang
-sign lang isn’t necessarily a translation of enligh it has its own rules - whashoe + Koko can produce signs BUT
- had lots of prompt when learning + not clear if signs are spontaneous
-Koko showed productivity (Hockett) by communicating finger bracelet to refer to a ring
More objective measures for teaching sign lang to monkeys
-visual signs
-Lana pushes keys to get things
- When pushed word sound plays
- learned to associate sign with sound + object
-Lana had a baby Kansi
kansi + sign lang
- Lana’s baby
-spontaneously learned by l00King + observing his mum - Best example of apes cog abilities in optimal conditions
- Ability to make a tool to cut rope holding box of bananas shut + plan complex action + maintain goal for a long time
- most monkeys have very short attention span
- knows hundreds of arbitrary words
- understands sentences + complex phrases similar to a 2 year old
Non-primates + communication -Dolphin
- can tell us how communication systems have evolved independently of human lineage
- in the wild dolphins are: sociable, learn from parent to child, signature clicks (name), creative beh
- in captivity: high cog abilities, categorise objects, complex concepts , artificial lang with word order variation, understand combination rule
Summary of scientific studies
- teaches US :
-> Apes + dolphins have good memory, plan complex actions + understand word order
-> monkeys better at humans in working memory tasks
-> evolve in diff circumstances - can’t learn full blown lang:
-> Kanzi’s was only similar to a 2 year old
-> lang production not like children-less spontaneous
-rarely use for interspecies communication
What could be different in humans
- Brain anatomy: Brain to body mass ratio- Dolphin = 0.9%, humans = 2.1%
-Brain growth + plasticity- mammals born with 90% of brain mass, humans 28 % (learn + wine connections
-Humans born underdev = learn through experience
other factors operating through evolution
-social-communicative urge: young babies naturally cooperate with others possibly due to dependency on parents
- innate cog capacity of joint attention + understanding others communicative intentions (pointing At cup toy is under)
-dogs can kind of do it
Language of Bees
- Dance lang
-Karl von Frisch - when work bee finds good flower necter, return home + communicate its location to fellow workers by performing a patterned waggle dance
-Dance communicates: direction, distance + quality
-Different bee species have different variation - Dance is genetic -> if adopted by another hive will dance like an castors not new hive
- Dance is non-arbitrary
Primate vocalisation
- shape of communication message often has a strong genetic component
-monkeys + apes show strong flexibility + capacity for learning when it comes to interpreting signals than producing them
understanding communicative urge
- chimps fail to follow a pointing cue
- chimps can understand in a comp situation when human extends arm fer bucket of food but can’t reach they infer the bucket must contain food
- can understand goals of other primates
-when themes no obvious reward for themselves , apes don’t help others but toddlers do - Ability to understand communicative intention that represents evolution of lang
Skills for a complex social world
- why don’t other primates share info with each other
- less motivated to engage in complex social beh ->humans place unusual importance on relationships
- Humans have ability to use joint attention: awareness between 2 indivs that they are paying attention to the same thing
- > tomaselo
How do humans produce sound
- pushing air out g lungs through vocal folds in larynx which vibrate
-need to control shape of mouth, lips + tongue with millisecond level timing
Birds + sound production
- Have superb vocal imitation skills
-learn to reproduce extremely complex sound sequences - If not exposed to songs of adults of their species never get it right as adults
-much of their ability is learned
vocalisations + neural pathways
-Humans + other primates make vocalisations from affective pathway (innate)
-e-g- crying + laughing is non-forced, innate
- Non-human primates are limited to affective path
- Humans, birds + dolphins can make vocal sounds via cog path - auditory learning before production
Human lang without speech
- when humans one deprived of usual auditory powers can readily adapt + do sign lang
- we aren’t dependent on speech to communicate
-led to hypothesis earliest form of human lang was gestural - apes spontaneously use gestures in wild
