Shigeru Miyagawa
Systems Underlying Human and Old World Monkey Communication: One, Two, or Infinite
Miyagawa, Shigeru; Clarke, Esther
Authors
Esther Clarke
Abstract
Using artificially synthesized stimuli, previous research has shown that cotton-top tamarin monkeys easily learn simple AB grammar sequences, but not the more complex An Bn sequences that require hierarchical structure. Humans have no trouble learning An Bn combinations. A more recent study, using similar artificially created stimuli, showed that there is a neuroanatomical difference in the brain between these two kinds of arrays. While the simpler AB sequences recruit the frontal operculum, the An Bn array recruits the phylogenetically newer Broca’s area. We propose that on close inspection, reported vocal repertoires of Old World Monkeys show that these nonhuman primates are capable of calls that have two items in them, but never more than two. These are simple AB sequences, as predicted by previous research. In addition, we suggest the two-item call cannot be the result of a combinatorial operation that we see in human language, where the recursive operation of Merge allows for a potentially infinite array of structures. In our view, the two-item calls of nonhuman primates result from a dual-compartment frame into which each of the calls can fit without having to be combined by an operation such as Merge.
Citation
Miyagawa, S., & Clarke, E. (2019). Systems Underlying Human and Old World Monkey Communication: One, Two, or Infinite. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, Article 1911. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01911
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Aug 5, 2019 |
Online Publication Date | Sep 3, 2019 |
Publication Date | Sep 1, 2019 |
Deposit Date | Sep 18, 2019 |
Publicly Available Date | Sep 18, 2019 |
Journal | Frontiers in Psychology |
Print ISSN | 1664-1078 |
Electronic ISSN | 1664-1078 |
Publisher | Frontiers Media |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 10 |
Article Number | 1911 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01911 |
Public URL | https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1291494 |
Files
Published Journal Article
(599 Kb)
PDF
Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2019 Miyagawa and Clarke. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
You might also like
The syntax and meaning of wild gibbon songs
(2006)
Journal Article
Context-specific close-range “hoo” calls in wild gibbons (Hylobates lar)
(2015)
Journal Article
Vocal communication in gibbons
(2014)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
Downloadable Citations
About Durham Research Online (DRO)
Administrator e-mail: dro.admin@durham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2025
Advanced Search