Meaningful Acoustic Units in Nonhuman Primate Vocal Behavior

Miller, CT; Ghazanfar, AA

doi:10.7551/mitpress/1885.003.0038

Cited by 6 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…The functions of contact calling seem to be context dependent. Among primate species, the same vocalizations are variously used during territorial encounters, mate attraction and isolation (1). In all contexts, contact calls produced by one individual typically elicit a similar vocalization by another.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Active Sampling in Primate Vocal Interactions

Varella,

Takahashi,

Ghazanfar

2023

Preprint

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Active sensing is a behavioral strategy for exploring the environment. In this study, we show that contact vocal behaviors can be an active sensing mechanism that uses sampling to gain information about the social environment, in particular, the vocal behavior of others. With a focus on the real-time vocal interactions of marmoset monkeys, we contrast active sampling to a vocal accommodation framework in which vocalizations are adjusted simply to maximize responses. We conducted simulations of a vocal accommodation and an active sampling policy and compared them with real vocal exchange data. Our findings support active sampling as the best model for marmoset monkey vocal exchanges. In some cases, the active sampling model was even able to predict the distribution of vocal durations for individuals. These results suggest a new function for primate vocal interactions in which they are used by animals to seek information from social environments.SignificanceWe found that marmoset monkeys use vocal exchanges with conspecifics in the same way that bats and electric fish use their self-generated signals: to sample the information space. The difference is that, while bats, electric fish and other echolocating animals emit signals and then interpret that signal’s reflection, for vocalizing marmoset monkeys the “reflection” is the vocal response from conspecifics. We show that marmosets produce variable vocalizations as a means to sample the acoustic space in which they can elicit a conspecific response. They are actively sampling--learning about their dyadic partner like a bat learns about its prey.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Active Sampling in Primate Vocal Interactions

Varella,

Takahashi,

Ghazanfar

2023

Preprint

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Antiphonal call timing in marmosets is behaviorally significant: interactive playback experiments

et al. 2009

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Studies of primate vocal communication systems have generally focused on vocalizations and the information they convey to conspecifics. But the vocalizations are not the only sources of information. Aspects of each species vocal behaviors are also likely to be communicatively rich as well. During vocal interactions, for example, the latency delay between the calls could communicate an important message to the signal receiver, such as an interest and willingness to socialize. Here we employed novel, interactive playback software to address this issue in the antiphonal calling behavior of common marmosets. In these experiments, we parametrically varied the latency delay of antiphonal call stimuli and measured its effects on subjects’ resultant vocal behavior. Results showed that marmosets produced successively fewer antiphonal call responses during test conditions with increasing latency delays. Moreover, although subjects produced significantly more antiphonal than spontaneous calls in conditions with antiphonal call timing delays up to 9s, a longer delay resulted in a significant decline in calling. These data suggest that antiphonal call timing is a salient cue for maintaining antiphonal calling interactions and may be used by marmosets to determine whether a subsequent call is produced in response to or independently of their own.

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Individual recognition during bouts of antiphonal calling in common marmosets

Miller

Thomas

2012

J Comp Physiol A

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Many vocalizations are encoded with a diversity of acoustic information about the signal producer. Amongst this information content are social categories related to the identity of the caller that are important for determining if and how a signal receiver may interact with that individual. Here we employed a novel playback method in common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) to test individual recognition during bouts of antiphonal calling. These experiments utilized custom, interactive playback software that effectively engaged subjects in antiphonal calling using vocalizations produced by a single individual and presented ‘probe’ vocalization stimuli representing a different individual at specific points within bouts of calling. The aim here was to test whether marmosets would recognize that the probe stimulus was a phee call produced by a different individual. Data indicated that marmosets were able to detect the change in caller identity; subjects produced significantly fewer antiphonal call responses to probe than control stimuli and, in some conditions, exhibited a shorter latency to produce the vocal response. These data suggest that marmosets recognize the identity of the individual during bouts of antiphonal calling. Furthermore, these results provide a methodological foundation for implementing the probe playback procedure to examine a broader range of social categorization during vocal interactions.

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Meaningful Acoustic Units in Nonhuman Primate Vocal Behavior

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Active Sampling in Primate Vocal Interactions

Active Sampling in Primate Vocal Interactions

Antiphonal call timing in marmosets is behaviorally significant: interactive playback experiments

Individual recognition during bouts of antiphonal calling in common marmosets

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