ArticleBiology2025
Evidence for Semantic Communication in Alarm Calls of Wild Sichuan Snub-Nosed Monkeys.
Article in Biology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Language-like properties in the vocal behavior of animals.Current opinion in neurobiology · 2026Review
- Correction: Cao et al. Evidence for Semantic Communication in Alarm Calls of Wild Sichuan Snub-Nosed Monkeys.Biology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The alarm calls of non-human primates help us to understand the evolution of animal vocal communication and the origin of human language. However, as there is a lack of research on alarm calls in primates living in multilevel societies, we studied these calls in wild Sichuan snub-nosed monkeys. By means of playback experiments, we analyzed whether call receivers understood the meaning of the alarm calls, making appropriate behavioral responses. Results showed that receivers made appropriate and specific anti-predator responses to two types of alarm calls. After hearing the aerial predator alarm call ("GEGEGE"), receivers' first gaze direction was usually upward (towards the sky), and upward gaze duration was longer than the last gaze before playback. After hearing the terrestrial predator alarm call ("O-GA"), the first gaze direction was usually downward (towards the ground), and this downward gaze duration was longer than the gaze before playback. These reactions provide evidence for external referentiality of alarm calls in Sichuan snub-nosed monkeys, that is, information about the type of predator or the appropriate response is encoded acoustically in the calls.
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