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Homework assignment #2
PSY 2364
Animal Communication
Comparison of animal communication and human language
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Due date: Wed. Dec. 9
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List and describe a set of universal properties
that are found in language.
(a) To what extent are these properties unique to
language? (b) To what extent are they also found
in animal communication systems? Give
examples where appropriate.
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Approximately 2 double-spaced, typed pages
Submit by via eLearning
 About 190 species in 3 major groups
Prosimians
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
 Ceboid (New World) monkeys – C. & S. America
 Cercopithecoid (Old World) monkeys – guenons,
mangabeys, macaques, baboons, langurs, etc.
 Lesser Apes (Hylobatidae) – gibbons and siamangs
 Great Apes (Pongidae) – chimpanzees, bonobos,
gorillas, orangutans
Apes
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 Lemurs – Madagascar
 Lorises, galagos and their allies – Africa, Asia
 Tarsiers (tarsiers, tree shrews) – Philippines, S.E. Asia
Monkeys
Order: Primates
Primates
(prosimians, monkeys and apes).
 Humans (Hominidae)
Distribution
Living
Fossil only
Prosimians – Aye-aye
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Daubentoniidae
Genus: Daubentonia
Species: madagascariensis
Aye-aye
Most primates live in the tropics or semi-tropical areas
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141128-these-animals-see-colour-at-night
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Prosimians - Lemurs
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Lemuridae
Genus: Varecia
Species: variegata
Ruffed black-and-white lemur
Prosimians - Lemurs
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Prosimians - Lemurs
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Indridae
Genus: Propithecus
Species: tattersalli
Golden-crowned sifaka
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Lemuridae
Genus: Varecia
Species: rubra
Red-ruffed lemur
Prosimians - Galagos
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Galagonidae
Genus: Galago
Species: moholi
Lesser Bushbaby
Prosimians - Lorises
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Lorisidae
Genus: Nycticebus
Species: coucang
Slow Loris
Prosimians - Tarsiers
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Tarsiidae
Genus: Tarsius
Species: spectrum
Spectral Tarsier
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Tarsiidae
Genus: Tarsius
Species: syrichta
Order: Primates
Prosimians
Prosimians - Tarsiers
 Lemurs – Madagascar
 Lorises, galagos and their allies – Africa, Asia
 Tarsiers (tarsiers, tree shrews) – Philippines, S.E. Asia
 Ceboid (New World) monkeys – C. & S. America
 Cercopithecoid (Old World) monkeys – guenons,
mangabeys, macaques, baboons, langurs, etc.
 Lesser Apes (Hylobatidae) – gibbons and siamangs
 Great Apes (Pongidae) – chimpanzees, bonobos,
gorillas, orangutans
 Humans (Hominidae)
Philippine Tarsier
Marmosets and Tamarins
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Callitrichidae
Genus: Leontopithecus
Species: rosalia
Golden Lion Tamarin
Marmosets and Tamarins
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Callitrichidae
Genus: Saguinus
Species: imperator
Emperor Tamarin
Marmosets and Tamarins
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Callitrichidae
Genus: Saguinus
Species: oedipus
New World monkeys
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Cotton-top Tamarin
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Cebidae
Genus: Alouatta
Species: caraya
Black-and-gold howler monkey
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New World monkeys
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New World monkeys
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Cebidae
Genus: Aotus
Species: trivirgatus
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Cebidae
Genus: Cebus
Species: albifrons
Douroucouli
(owl monkey)
New World monkeys
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Cebidae
Genus: Cebus
Species: apella
White-fronted capuchin
New World monkeys
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Tufted capuchin
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Cebidae
Genus: Cacajao
Species: calvus
Red-faced uakari
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Cebidae
Genus: Pithecia
Species: irrorata
Order: Primates
Prosimians
New World monkeys
 Lemurs – Madagascar
 Lorises, galagos and their allies – Africa, Asia
 Tarsiers (tarsiers, tree shrews) – Philippines, S.E. Asia
 Ceboid (New World) monkeys – C. & S. America
 Cercopithecoid (Old World) monkeys – guenons,
mangabeys, macaques, baboons, langurs, etc.
Gray’s bald-faced saki
 Lesser Apes (Hylobatidae) – gibbons and siamangs
 Great Apes (Pongidae) – chimpanzees, bonobos,
gorillas, orangutans
 Humans (Hominidae)
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Old World monkeys
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Cercopithecidae
Genus: Cercopithecus
L’Houest or mountain monkey
Species: lhouesti
Old World monkeys
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Cercopithecidae
Genus: Chlorocebus
Species: aethiops
Vervet monkey
Old World monkeys
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Cercopithecidae
Genus: Macaca
Species: fascicularis
Old World monkeys
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Crab-eating macaque
Mandrill
Old World monkeys
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Cercopithecidae
Genus: Colobus
Species: guereza
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Cercopithecidae
Genus: Mandrillus
Species: sphinx
Old World monkeys
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Cercopithecidae
Genus: Pygathrix
Species: roxellana
Sichuan golden snub-nosed monkey
Black-and-white colobus monkey
(Guereza)
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Prosimians
Order: Primates
 Lemurs – Madagascar
 Lorises, galagos and their allies – Africa, Asia
 Tarsiers (tarsiers, tree shrews) – Philippines, S.E. Asia
 Ceboid (New World) monkeys – C. & S. America
 Cercopithecoid (Old World) monkeys – guenons,
mangabeys, macaques, baboons, langurs, etc.
 Lesser Apes (Hylobatidae) – gibbons and siamangs
 Great Apes (Pongidae) – chimpanzees, bonobos,
gorillas, orangutans
Lesser apes
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hylobatidae
Genus: Hylobates
Species: lar
 Humans (Hominidae)
Lesser apes
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White-handed gibbon
Great apes
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hylobatidae
Genus: Hylobates
Species: syndactylus
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Pongidae
Genus: Pan
Species: troglodytes
Chimpanzee
Siamang
Great apes
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Great apes
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Pongidae
Genus: Pan
Species: paniscus
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Pongidae
Genus: Gorilla
Species: gorilla
Gorilla
Bonobo
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Great apes
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Hominids
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Pongidae
Genus: Pongo
Species: pygmaeus
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Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae
Genus: Homo
Species: sapiens
Human
Orangutan
Primate life styles
• Most primates are arboreal (forest, jungle).
• Some old world monkeys (e.g. olive
baboons) are terrestrial, i.e. adapted to
living and foraging on the ground.
• Some apes (gorillas, chimpanzees) spend a
lot of time on the ground.
• No primates are exclusively terrestrial.
Primates – diet
• Most primates are omnivorous and eat a
combination of fruits, seeds, leaves, and
insects
• Some species kill and eat small mammals
• Some eat mainly leaves
Primates – physical traits
• Features shared with other mammals
– e.g., giving birth to live young, fed on milk
• Features that define primates as unique
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tendency toward erect posture
prehensile (grasping) limbs
5 digits on hands and feet
opposable thumb; fingernails rather than claws
long gestation period, delayed maturation, long lifespan
Primates – sensory systems
• Binocular vision: eyes positioned in the
front of the face provides capacity for depth
perception and stereoscopic vision.
• Color vision: Diurnal primates see in color;
nocturnal primates lack color vision.
• Acute hearing
• Reduced reliance on olfaction
• Expanded brain size (cerebral hemispheres)
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Primate communication systems
• Primate communication is multimodal
(vocalizations, facial expressions, gestures,
postures, tactile contact signals, olfactory
signals).
• Primate communication takes place within
an extended context, not in isolation
Marler (1965)
• Multimodal signals
• Long-term social contacts
• Short-range signals
– calls, visual gestures and postures, contact
• Long-distance signals
– usually unimodal, because of signal degradation
– specialized structures for long-distance vocalization
(throat pouches used for long calls by howler monkeys
and siamangs)
– same sound may appear in different situations
– context helps to determine meaning (response)
Marler (1965)
• Discrete versus graded signals – many primate
signals are graded; variations in meaning are
correlated with small changes in behavioral pattern
rather than discrete and different behaviors.
• Graded signals are well suited for conveying
messages along a continuous scale (e.g. degree of
confidence or aggression level).
• Discrete signals are well suited for delivering a
single message (e.g. vervet monkey alarm calls)
Variety of message states
• Signals to coordinate group movements, dispersal
– increase distance (territorial exclusion)
– maintain distance (constant spacing of adjacent troops)
– reduce distance (bring animals together)
• Environmental information
– So far, restricted to alarm calls for different types of
predator
Variety of message states
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Submissiveness
Aggression
Anxiety
Fear
Mating and courtship signals
Parent-infant interactions
Culture in animals?
• What is culture?
– A uniquely human trait mediated by language?
– A process of inter-generational transmission of
patterns of behavior via social learning?
– Geographically distinct patterns of variation
• Sweet potato washing by Japanese macaques
• Song dialects in birds
• Tool use by chimpanzees
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Chimpanzees
Pan troglodytes
Culture in chimpanzees?
• Whiten, Goodall, McGrew, Nishida, Reynolds, Sugiyama,
Tutin, Wrangham and Boesch (1999). Culture in
chimpanzees. Science 399: 682-685.
• Field studies from 7 long-term studies revealed patterns of
variation far more extensive than previously recorded for
any animal species except humans.
• 39 different behavior patterns including tool usage,
grooming and courtship behaviors consistent with the idea
of cultural transmission.
Forms of tool use by chimpanzees
Science 399: 682-685
Hockett’s design features of language
What is language?
Bee dance Bird song Language
Vocal-auditory channel
• Hockett’s design features of language:
• All human languages share 16 basic properties
that distinguish language from other forms of
communication in animals.
• Some (but not all) of these properties may also
be found in animal communication systems.
Rapid fading
Charles Hockett (1966). The Problem of Universals in Language.
Interchangeability
Total feedback
Specialization
No
Yes
Yes
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Yes
Yes
Some
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Yes
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Yes
Yes
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Yes
Yes
Semanticity
Yes
Yes?
Yes
Arbitrariness
No
Yes?
Yes
Discreteness
No
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Yes
Displacement
Yes
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Yes
Productivity
Yes
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Yes
Traditional transmission
No
Yes
Yes
Duality of patterning
No
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Yes
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Levels of linguistic analysis
Phonetics
1. Phonetics – speech sound production/perception
2. Phonology –patterning of sounds (phonemes) in a
language
• Speech sound
production
• Speech sound
perception
3. Morphology – principles of word (morpheme)
formation
4. Syntax – organization and arrangement of
morphemes in sentences
5. Semantics – study of meaning
6. Pragmatics – language use in social context
Phonology
• Phonology is the study of sound patterning
in a given language
• Phonemes are the sound units in a given
language
Phonology
• Phonemes
– Small units of language; do not convey
meaning by themselves
– Minimal pairs test (“pit” vs. “bit”)
– American English has 12 vowels (e, o, u, …)
and 24 consonants (p, t, k, …)
Morphology
Syntax
• Morphology is the study of word construction
in a given language
• Morphemes are the smallest units in a
language that carry meaning
• Syntax is the study of the principles and rules
for constructing sentences in a language.
• Units of syntax are the traditional “parts of
speech” (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)
• Syntactic theories describe the rules of
sentence construction (rules of grammar)
– Morphemes are similar to words, but some words
consist of more than one morpheme
– dogs = ‘dog’ + ‘s’ (plural marker)
– Formal mathematical theories
– Characterization of grammatical knowledge
(Chomsky)
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Semantics
• Semantics is the study of meaning
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Lexicon (dictionary)
Color terms
Kinship terms
Cross-language comparisons
Language acquisition
• Critical period for language acquisition?
• Hemispheric specialization
• Recovery from aphasia
• Stages of language development
• “Motherese” (infant-directed speech)
• Prosody of speech
Milestones of speech development
(P. Kuhl, Nature Neuroscience Reviews, Nov 2004)
Infant-directed Speech
• Limited vocabulary, concrete reference
– doggie, potty, choo-choo train, boo-boo
• Simple syntax: short sentences; more
imperatives and questions
• Precise articulation
• Repetition
• Exaggerated pitch contours
– “what a good boy!”
Infant-directed Speech
Prosody – melody of speech
1. approval heavily modulated, extensive
rise/fall in fundamental frequency (pitch)
2. prohibition ("NO!")
3. attention (shorter than approval, more
rapid rise to maximum)
4. comfort (relatively unmodulated,
downsweep in fundamental frequency)
Infantdirected
speech
P.K. Kuhl (2004).
Early language acquisition:
Cracking the speech code.
Nature reviews – Neuroscience
Volume 5 | Nov 2004 | 831
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Learned communication
Language and animal communication
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Vocal imitation and invention
Vocal tract anatomy and motor control
Perceptual abilities
Brain mechanisms
Theory of mind, attribution of mental states
Referential signaling
Rule-based learning, sign language,
artificial language systems
• Factors that favor learned communication:
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Learned communication
Sources of evidence for learning
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existence of (learned) dialects
interspecific mimicry
acoustic isolation
deafening to remove auditory feedback
disruption of neural pathways (CNS lesioning)
tape tutoring (birds); social tutoring (captive
rearing)
• cross-fostering (young reared by adults of another
species)
Learning and behavior
Variability in signal production & perception
Individual or group recognition
Adaptation to unpredictable environments
Need for complex decision making
Long period of parental care
Stable long-term social interactions
Capacity for imitation and invention
• Factors that favor learned communication:
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Variability in signal production & perception
Individual or group recognition
Adaptation to unpredictable environments
Need for complex decision making
Long period of parental care
Stable long-term social interactions
Capacity for imitation and invention
Tool use and learning in crows
• Captive New Caledonian crows have
learned to develop and use tools to solve
complex problems.
• This crow was able to bend a piece of
straight wire into a hook, and used the
hook to lift a bucket containing food
from a vertical pipe.
• Reference: Weir, Chappell, & Kacelnik
Science 297, 981 (2002).
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fumsiIGE9c0
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Mirror self-recognition
Joshua M. Plotnik, Frans B. M. de Waal and Diana
Reiss (2006). Self-recognition in an Asian
elephant. PNAS 103 (45): 17053–17057.
Mirror self-recognition
• Previously found only in humans, apes, and
dolphins
• MSR involves four stages:
(i) social response
(ii) inspection (e.g., looking behind the mirror)
(iii) repetitive mirror-testing
(iv) self-directed behavior (i.e., recognition of
the mirror image as self)
www.pnas.orgcgidoi10.1073pnas.0608062103
Word learning by a dog
Word learning by a dog
Word Learning in a Domestic
Dog: Evidence for “Fast Mapping”.
Juliane Kaminski, Josep Call, Julia Fischer
Science 304: 1682-1683.
www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/304/5677/1682/
A border collie, Rico, learned the labels of over 200
different items. He inferred the names of novel
items by exclusion learning and correctly retrieved
those items right away as well as 4 weeks after the
initial exposure.
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