Gestural communication of the gorilla (Gorilla gorilla): repertoire, intentionality and possible origins |
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Authors: | Emilie Genty Thomas Breuer Catherine Hobaiter Richard W Byrne |
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Institution: | (1) Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution and Scottish Primate Research Group, School of Psychology, University of St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9JP, Scotland, UK;(2) Department of Primatology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany;(3) Mbeli Bai Study, Wildlife Conservation Society, Congo Program, BP 14537, Brazzaville, Republic of Congo |
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Abstract: | Social groups of gorillas were observed in three captive facilities and one African field site. Cases of potential gesture
use, totalling 9,540, were filtered by strict criteria for intentionality, giving a corpus of 5,250 instances of intentional
gesture use. This indicated a repertoire of 102 gesture types. Most repertoire differences between individuals and sites were
explicable as a consequence of environmental affordances and sampling effects: overall gesture frequency was a good predictor
of universality of occurrence. Only one gesture was idiosyncratic to a single individual, and was given only to humans. Indications
of cultural learning were few, though not absent. Six gestures appeared to be traditions within single social groups, but
overall concordance in repertoires was almost as high between as within social groups. No support was found for the ontogenetic
ritualization hypothesis as the chief means of acquisition of gestures. Many gestures whose form ruled out such an origin,
i.e. gestures derived from species-typical displays, were used as intentionally and almost as flexibly as gestures whose form
was consistent with learning by ritualization. When using both classes of gesture, gorillas paid specific attention to the
attentional state of their audience. Thus, it would be unwarranted to divide ape gestural repertoires into ‘innate, species-typical,
inflexible reactions’ and ‘individually learned, intentional, flexible communication’. We conclude that gorilla gestural communication
is based on a species-typical repertoire, like those of most other mammalian species but very much larger. Gorilla gestures
are not, however, inflexible signals but are employed for intentional communication to specific individuals. |
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Keywords: | Great ape Gesture Audience effects Flexibility Ontogeny |
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