Bonobo and chimpanzee gestures overlap extensively in meaning

PLoS Biology
Kirsty E GrahamRichard W Byrne

Abstract

Cross-species comparison of great ape gesturing has so far been limited to the physical form of gestures in the repertoire, without questioning whether gestures share the same meanings. Researchers have recently catalogued the meanings of chimpanzee gestures, but little is known about the gesture meanings of our other closest living relative, the bonobo. The bonobo gestural repertoire overlaps by approximately 90% with that of the chimpanzee, but such overlap might not extend to meanings. Here, we first determine the meanings of bonobo gestures by analysing the outcomes of gesturing that apparently satisfy the signaller. Around half of bonobo gestures have a single meaning, while half are more ambiguous. Moreover, all but 1 gesture type have distinct meanings, achieving a different distribution of intended meanings to the average distribution for all gesture types. We then employ a randomisation procedure in a novel way to test the likelihood that the observed between-species overlap in the assignment of meanings to gestures would arise by chance under a set of different constraints. We compare a matrix of the meanings of bonobo gestures with a matrix for those of chimpanzees against 10,000 randomised iterations of matrices con...Continue Reading

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Citations

Jul 7, 2019·Animal Cognition·Erica A Cartmill, Catherine Hobaiter
Jan 30, 2020·BioEssays : News and Reviews in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology·Adriano R Lameira, Josep Call
Nov 19, 2019·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Kirsty E GrahamKatie E Slocombe
Jan 3, 2020·Primates; Journal of Primatology·Roberta Salmi, Maria Muñoz
Sep 10, 2018·Animal Cognition·Verena KerskenCatherine Hobaiter
Apr 26, 2018·Frontiers in Psychology·Katja Liebal, Linda Oña
Oct 13, 2019·Animal Cognition·Sandra MolestiMarie Bourjade
Mar 25, 2020·Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science·Marie BourjadeMichèle Guidetti
Feb 20, 2021·Evolutionary Human Sciences·Michael Lawrence Wilson
Mar 30, 2021·Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society·Alba Motes-Rodrigo, Claudio Tennie
Aug 7, 2021·American Journal of Primatology·Evelina D RodriguesCatherine Hobaiter

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