ArticlePsychonomic bulletin & review2017
Primate vocal production and the riddle of language evolution.
Article in Psychonomic bulletin & review, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed.
- The As and Bs of titi monkey linguistics: why emotional communication is not the enemy.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- Categorical and semantic perception of the meaning of call types in zebra finches.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- Vocal taking turns is premature at birth and improved by the postnatal phonetic environment in marmosets.National science review · 2025Article
- Vocal and articulatory speech control deficits in individuals with post-stroke aphasia.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Sex differences in the acoustic structure of terrestrial alarm calls in vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus).American journal of primatology · 2025Article
- Bioacoustic characterization of the black-and-white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata) vocal repertoire.Primates; journal of primatology · 2023Article
- Neural oscillations reveal disrupted functional connectivity associated with impaired speech auditory feedback control in post-stroke aphasia.Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior · 2023Article
- Comprehension of own and other species' alarm calls in sooty mangabey vocal development.Behavioral ecology and sociobiology · 2023Article
- Aberrant beta-band brain connectivity predicts speech motor planning deficits in post-stroke aphasia.Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior · 2022Article
- Flexible use of contact calls in a species with high fission-fusion dynamics.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Communicative roots of complex sociality and cognition: preface to the theme issue.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- The Representation of Time Windows in Primate Auditory Cortex.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2022Article
- Article
- The Indexical Voice: Communication of Personal States and Traits in Humans and Other Primates.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Review
- Acoustic allometry and vocal learning in mammals.Biology letters · 2020Review
- Which way to the dawn of speech?: Reanalyzing half a century of debates and data in light of speech science.Science advances · 2019Review
- A Modular Approach to Vocal Learning: Disentangling the Diversity of a Complex Behavioral Trait.Neuron · 2019Review
- Evolutionary Elongation of the Time Window of Integration in Auditory Cortex: Macaque vs. Human Comparison of the Effects of Sound Duration on Auditory Evoked Potentials.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2019Article
- Flexible usage and social function in primate vocalizations.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2018Review
- To grunt or not to grunt: Factors governing call production in female olive baboons, Papio anubis.PloS one · 2018Article
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Abstract
Trying to uncover the roots of human speech and language has been the premier motivation to study the signalling behaviour of nonhuman primates for several decades. Focussing on the question of whether we find evidence for linguistic reference in the production of nonhuman primate vocalizations, I will first discuss how the criteria used to diagnose referential signalling have changed over time, and will then turn to the paradigmatic case of semantic communication in animals, the alarm calls of vervet monkeys, Chlorocebus pygerythrus. A recent in-depth analysis of the original material revealed that, while the alarm calls could be well distinguished, calls of similar structure were also used in within- and between-group aggression. This finding is difficult to reconcile with the idea that calls denote objects in the environment. Furthermore, nonhuman primates show only minimal signs of vocal production learning, one key prerequisite for conventionalized and symbolic communication. In addition, the structure of calls in different populations or closely related species is highly conserved. In conclusion, any continuity between nonhuman primate and human communication appears to be found at the level of the processing of signals. Why and how the ancestors of our own species one day began to talk to each other continues to be an enigma. Future research should focus on changes in the neural structure supporting volitional control over vocalizations, the gene networks associated with vocal production, and the developmental processes involved in the integration of production and perception of vocalizations.
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