ArticleScientific reports2016
Vocal fold control beyond the species-specific repertoire in an orang-utan.
Article in Scientific reports, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers.
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Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 127 citations in OpenAlex.
- Twice times two: Dual mechanism for double rhythmic meter in orangutans and the evolution of human song.iScience · 2026Article
- Generative vocal plasticity in chimpanzees.iScience · 2025Article
- Combinatorics and complexity of chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) facial signals.Animal cognition · 2025Article
- Vocal Learning Versus Speech Evolution: Untangling a False Equivalence.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Article
- Open plains are not a level playing field for hominid consonant-like versus vowel-like calls.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Wild orangutans can simultaneously use two independent vocal sound sources similarly to songbirds and human beatboxers.PNAS nexus · 2023Article
- Beyond Broca: neural architecture and evolution of a dual motor speech coordination system.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2023Article
- Deep audio embeddings for vocalisation clustering.PloS one · 2023Article
- Multimodal imitative learning and synchrony in cetaceans: A model for speech and singing evolution.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Review
- Optionality in animal communication: a novel framework for examining the evolution of arbitrariness.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2022Article
- Innovative multi-material tool use in the pant-hoot display of a chimpanzee.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Sociality predicts orangutan vocal phenotype.Nature ecology & evolution · 2022Article
- The function and evolution of child-directed communication.PLoS biology · 2022Article
- Chimpanzee vowel-like sounds and voice quality suggest formant space expansion through the hominoid lineage.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- The neural control of volitional vocal production-from speech to identity, from social meaning to song.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Article
- A dual larynx motor networks hypothesis.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
- The many functions of vocal learning.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
- Vocal production learning in mammals revisited.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Vocal fold control was critical to the evolution of spoken language, much as it today allows us to learn vowel systems. It has, however, never been demonstrated directly in a non-human primate, leading to the suggestion that it evolved in the human lineage after divergence from great apes. Here, we provide the first evidence for real-time, dynamic and interactive vocal fold control in a great ape during an imitation "do-as-I-do" game with a human demonstrator. Notably, the orang-utan subject skilfully produced "wookies" - an idiosyncratic vocalization exhibiting a unique spectral profile among the orang-utan vocal repertoire. The subject instantaneously matched human-produced wookies as they were randomly modulated in pitch, adjusting his voice frequency up or down when the human demonstrator did so, readily generating distinct low vs. high frequency sub-variants. These sub-variants were significantly different from spontaneous ones (not produced in matching trials). Results indicate a latent capacity for vocal fold exercise in a great ape (i) in real-time, (ii) up and down the frequency spectrum, (iii) across a register range beyond the species-repertoire and, (iv) in a co-operative turn-taking social setup. Such ancestral capacity likely provided the neuro-behavioural basis of the more fine-tuned vocal fold control that is a human hallmark.
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