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      Bonobo and chimpanzee gestures overlap extensively in meaning

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          Abstract

          Cross-species comparison of great ape gesturing has so far been limited to the physical form of gestures in the repertoire, without questioning whether gestures share the same meanings. Researchers have recently catalogued the meanings of chimpanzee gestures, but little is known about the gesture meanings of our other closest living relative, the bonobo. The bonobo gestural repertoire overlaps by approximately 90% with that of the chimpanzee, but such overlap might not extend to meanings. Here, we first determine the meanings of bonobo gestures by analysing the outcomes of gesturing that apparently satisfy the signaller. Around half of bonobo gestures have a single meaning, while half are more ambiguous. Moreover, all but 1 gesture type have distinct meanings, achieving a different distribution of intended meanings to the average distribution for all gesture types. We then employ a randomisation procedure in a novel way to test the likelihood that the observed between-species overlap in the assignment of meanings to gestures would arise by chance under a set of different constraints. We compare a matrix of the meanings of bonobo gestures with a matrix for those of chimpanzees against 10,000 randomised iterations of matrices constrained to the original data at 4 different levels. We find that the similarity between the 2 species is much greater than would be expected by chance. Bonobos and chimpanzees share not only the physical form of the gestures but also many gesture meanings.

          Author summary

          Bonobos and chimpanzees are closely related members of the great ape family, and both species use gestures to communicate. We are able to deduce the meaning of great ape gestures by looking at the ‘Apparently Satisfactory Outcome’ (ASO), which reflects how the recipient of the gesture reacts and whether their reaction satisfies the signaller; satisfaction is shown by the signaller ceasing to produce more gestures. Here, we use ASOs to define the meaning of bonobo gestures, most of which are used to start or stop social interactions such as grooming, travelling, or sex. We then compare the meanings of bonobo gestures with those of chimpanzees and find that many of the gestures share the same meanings. Bonobos and chimpanzees could, in principle, understand one another’s gestures; however, more research is necessary to determine how such gestures and gesture meanings are acquired.

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          Imitation of facial and manual gestures by human neonates.

          Infants between 12 and 21 days of age can imitate both facial and manual gestures; this behavior cannot be explained in terms of either conditioning or innate releasing mechanisms. Such imitation implies that human neonates can equate their own unseen behaviors with gestures they see others perform.
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            Monkey responses to three different alarm calls: evidence of predator classification and semantic communication

            Vervet monkeys give different alarm calls to different predators. Recordings of the alarms played back when predators were absent caused the monkeys to run into trees for leopard alarms, look up for eagle alarms, and look down for snake alarms. Adults call primarily to leopards, martial eagles, and pythons, but infants give leopard alarms to various mammals, eagle alarms to many birds, and snake alarms to various snakelike objects. Predator classification improves with age and experience.
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              Allometry of alarm calls: black-capped chickadees encode information about predator size.

              Many animals produce alarm signals when they detect a potential predator, but we still know little about the information contained in these signals. Using presentations of 15 species of live predators, we show that acoustic features of the mobbing calls of black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapilla) vary with the size of the predator. Companion playback experiments revealed that chickadees detect this information and that the intensity of mobbing behavior is related to the size and threat of the potential predator. This study demonstrates an unsuspected level of complexity and sophistication in avian alarm calls.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: Funding acquisitionRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: Project administrationRole: ResourcesRole: VisualizationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Funding acquisitionRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: ResourcesRole: VisualizationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: MethodologyRole: VisualizationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Funding acquisitionRole: Project administrationRole: ResourcesRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Formal analysisRole: MethodologyRole: Project administrationRole: ResourcesRole: SupervisionRole: VisualizationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Academic Editor
                Journal
                PLoS Biol
                PLoS Biol
                plos
                plosbiol
                PLoS Biology
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )
                1544-9173
                1545-7885
                27 February 2018
                February 2018
                27 February 2018
                : 16
                : 2
                : e2004825
                Affiliations
                [1 ] School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom
                [2 ] Department of Psychology, University of York, York, United Kingdom
                [3 ] School of Biology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom
                [4 ] Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, Inuyama, Japan
                Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
                Author notes

                The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7422-7676
                Article
                pbio.2004825
                10.1371/journal.pbio.2004825
                5828348
                29485994
                e8aa3567-84cd-49e1-8089-4037143e0a97
                © 2018 Graham et al

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 15 November 2017
                : 25 January 2018
                Page count
                Figures: 8, Tables: 0, Pages: 18
                Funding
                JSPS Core-to-Core Program http://www.jsps.go.jp/english/e-core_to_core/ (grant number 2012-2014, 2015-2017). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Grant in Aid for Scientific Research (grant number 25304019, 25257407, 26257408). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. University of St Andrews https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/study/ug/fees-and-funding/scholarships/600th-wardlaw/ (grant number 600th Anniversary Scholarship). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Wenner-Gren Foundation http://www.wennergren.org/ (grant number Gr. 8950). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
                Categories
                Research Article
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Organisms
                Eukaryota
                Animals
                Vertebrates
                Amniotes
                Mammals
                Primates
                Apes
                Bonobos
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Organisms
                Eukaryota
                Animals
                Vertebrates
                Amniotes
                Mammals
                Primates
                Apes
                Chimpanzees
                Social Sciences
                Sociology
                Communications
                Semiotics
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Behavior
                Animal Behavior
                Animal Signaling and Communication
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Zoology
                Animal Behavior
                Animal Signaling and Communication
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Organisms
                Eukaryota
                Animals
                Vertebrates
                Amniotes
                Mammals
                Primates
                Apes
                Research and Analysis Methods
                Mathematical and Statistical Techniques
                Statistical Methods
                Analysis of Variance
                Physical Sciences
                Mathematics
                Statistics (Mathematics)
                Statistical Methods
                Analysis of Variance
                Physical Sciences
                Physics
                Acoustics
                Acoustic Signals
                Physical Sciences
                Mathematics
                Discrete Mathematics
                Combinatorics
                Permutation
                Custom metadata
                All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.

                Life sciences
                Life sciences

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