Communication Flashcards
signals
-put forth by sender so receiver can understand message
intentional communication
- calls
- can occur at same time at non-intentional
non-intentional communication (involuntary)
- ANS
- piloerection
- hair standing on end
- posture of animals
- can occur at same time as intentional
What is special about gorilla communication?
-continue making louder and louder calls until they get the point across
How do chimps communicate
- reaching out hands = appeasement
- recognition
- comfort
- kind of like human handshake
what are the 4 things you look for in a communication?
1) signal - threat face
2) motivation - arounsal mrritation
3) meaning - aggressive intent
4) function - dominance without aggression
threat face
-staring into eyes
smiles
- play smile
- social smile
visual communication
- gestures, posture, color
- body language (nonverbal communication)
- sexual dimorphism
- natal coat
- species, age, hormone status
- color red
- visual indicators of immaturity/maturity
- open arms
exaggeration of visual signals
- piloerection
- bipedalism
what does the color Red symbolize
-women like red more on men
example of visual indicators of age/maturity
-orangutan face shape changes with age
natal coat
-babies have different coat than adults
tactile communication
- touch associated with positive
- mother-infant relationship
- grooming (group cohesion, reconciliation, reassurance after distress)
- passive body contact
- sleeping huddle
- grooming
sleeping huddle
lowers arousal
passive body contact
grooming
- group cohesion
- reconciliation
- reassurance after distress
olfactory communication
- reliance on scent-making
- species, gender, hormone status
- vomeronasal system
where does scent come from?
- oil glands
- urine
- fecal matter
- sneezing
vomeronasal system
- direct connections to olfactory bulb and amygdala
- pheromones - scents have direct effects on the brain
- prosimians and NW monkeys
squirrel monkeys scent marking
- females do it
- males do it
- different names for both
- females rub urine on feed and walk - urine wash
- males do it-called kick wash
auditory communication
- sometimes to augment visual
- different types of calls
different types of calls
- distress calls
- cohesion calls
- territorial calls
- food calls
- predator calls
- gibbon siamang long call
Robert Seyfarth and Dorothy Cheyney
- studied predator calls in vervet
- different calls by vervets to leopards, eagles and snakes
- also different calls depending on type of predator, proximity of predator
infant distress calls
-types of monkeys and their calls
- rhesus monkeys (woo-shriek)
- squirrel monkey (whistle)
study with infant distress calls
- played pre-recorded calls of infants to adults
- adults responded to the calls from their own infant
- species more closely related also respond to calls of other species, but not ones that are far away
Rene Descartes
- wondered whether language is the exclusive domain of humans
- thoughts animals don’t have a language
- opposing view of Descartes
Pepys
Baboons can understand English
-opposing view of Descartes
Is primate brain size a limitation for primates to be able to speak?
- size of brain
- lateralization?
- no
- brain size=500 cubic cm
- primates have dominant hemispheres in the brain -lateralized brain
Brain language areas
- broca’s and wernicke’s areas
- primates have these areas
- but why don’t they speak?
Why don’t primates speak?
- vocal cord/tongue issue
- humans have a drop in larynx and vocal cords; primates have these higher up in throat
- drop may have come with bipedalism
- this is why we choke - so we can talk; apes can breathe and eat at the same time (price we pay for language)
Extended period of postnatal maturation
- human brain 24% of adult size at birth
- monkey and chimp brain 60% of adult size
- high energy needs of development brain (human)-energy needs for development reduce with age
Why is human brain such a small percentage of adult size at birth
-helps language become more sophisticated
Wand L Kellog-family
- raised chimps in the house
- studied raising chimps with human child to see if they would speak
- raising chimps in own home doesn’t mean they will speak
Kieth and Kathy Hays
- raised chimp named Vicki (1940s)
- attempts at language=fail
- cup, up, mama, papa-that’s all they got from chimp
Robert yerkes
- thought great apes have a lot to say but can’t talk
- maybe they will use sign language
American Sign Language
- teach chimps
- recently-use computer interfaces
- chimp signs are recognizable
- washoe
- chantek
- koko
Washoe
- first signing
- 1960s
- Allen and Beatrice Gardner
- 132-151 gestures over 4 years
- referents (come, give me)
- 2-3 sign sequences
- made up signs
- Clever Hans effect
- Robert Frouts
Signs that washoe made up
- water+bird for swan
- drink+fruit=watermelon
Robert Frouts
-who did he work with?
- 1970
- grad student working with gardener’s
- worked with washoe until she died
- wanted to teach sign to other chimps in next generation
- found they do more imitation
Lyn Miles
- worked with chantek (orangutan)
- taught him how to sign
motivation to emit pant-hoot calls
- chimpanzees
- sleeping in boxes
- jump around and grunt
- change in calling across the morning after wake-up (give food/broadcast pant-hoots)
- you can change behavior - lower or increase arounsal
- males and females can do it, but males = more
Penny Peterson - phd project
-taught koko the gorilla how to sign
David premack
- Sarah the ape
- plastic symbols -set the stage for LANA
LANA-LANguage analog
- who developed it
- who were the first Chimps to use it
- what is it
- what is the grammar called
- display panel each symbol represents a word
- wrote a grammar called yerkish
- developed by Rumbaghs
- symbol language; each symbol is 1 word
- Sherman and Austin, first chimps to communicate with each other
Kanzi the bonobo
- most proficient at LANA
- watched his adoptive mother and caught on very fast
- may have picked up spoken language understanding
Herbert Terrace
- chimp called nim chimsky
- tested language understanding
- it’s not spontaneous-do it in response to humans
- single utterances
- mostly for food
- largely imitation
- not true language
Irene pepperberg
- Alex the parrot
- taught him to communicate
Noam Chomsky
- requirements for language
- syntax, grammar
- duality-phoneme repeatable unit (sign gesture must be symbolic)
- displacement in time and space
- productivity
- arbitrary
- cultural transmission
- only a few places around the world are still studying this
