Socio-spatial cognition in vervet monkeys

Noë, Ronald; Laporte, Marion

doi:10.1007/s10071-013-0690-3

Cited by 39 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 85 publications

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“…However, the three different alarm calls produced to leopards, eagles and snakes in no way exhaust the concepts that vervets can represent. In addition to 'standard' primate concepts like individuality and dominance [70], vervets maintain complex spatial representations of their environment [71] and can mentally track the locations of hidden group members [72]. They can socially learn how to access food and rapidly absorb new social preferences about what to eat based on colour [73].…”

Section: Concepts and Communication In Primatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Animal cognition and the evolution of human language: why we cannot focus solely on communication

Fitch

2019

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Studies of animal communication are often assumed to provide the ‘royal road’ to understanding the evolution of human language. After all, language is the pre-eminent system of human communication: doesn't it make sense to search for its precursors in animal communication systems? From this viewpoint, if some characteristic feature of human language is lacking in systems of animal communication, it represents a crucial gap in evolution, and evidence for an evolutionary discontinuity. Here I argue that we should reverse this logic: because a defining feature of human language is its ability to flexibly represent and recombine concepts, precursors for many important components of language should be sought in animal cognition rather than animal communication. Animal communication systems typically only permit expression of a small subset of the concepts that can be represented and manipulated by that species. Thus, if a particular concept is not expressed in a species' communication system this is not evidence that it lacks that concept. I conclude that if we focus exclusively on communicative signals, we sell the comparative analysis of language evolution short. Therefore, animal cognition provides a crucial (and often neglected) source of evidence regarding the biology and evolution of human language.This article is part of the theme issue ‘What can animal communication teach us about human language?’

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Section: Concepts and Communication In Primatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Animal cognition and the evolution of human language: why we cannot focus solely on communication

Fitch

2019

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…Individuals of primate groups that show fission–fusion dynamics can actively maintain cohesion by (a) remaining in visual range, (b) remaining in auditory contact, or (c) using a mental representation of the location of other group members when not in visual or auditory contact [Noë & Laporte, ]. The cohesion of groups can be quantified with different measurements, e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial cohesion of adult male chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire

Eckhardt

Polansky

Boesch

2014

American J Primatol

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Group living animals can exhibit fission-fusion behavior whereby individuals temporarily separate to reduce the costs of living in large groups. Primates living in groups with fission-fusion dynamics face numerous challenges in maintaining spatial cohesion, especially in environments with limited visibility. Here we investigated the spatial cohesion of adult male chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) living in Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire, to better understand the mechanisms by which individuals maintain group cohesion during fission-fusion events. Over a 3-year period, we simultaneously tracked the movements of 2-4 males for 4-12 hr on up to 12 consecutive days using handheld GPS devices that recorded locations at one-minute intervals. Analyses of the male's inter-individual distance (IID) showed that the maximum, median, and mean IID values across all observations were 7.2 km, 73 m, and 483 m, respectively. These males (a) had maximum daily IID values below the limits of auditory communication (<1 km) for 63% of the observation time, (b) remained out of visual range (≥100 m) for 46% of observation time, and (c) remained within auditory range for 70% of the time when they were in different parties. We compared the observed distribution of IIDs with a random distribution obtained from permutations of the individuals' travel paths using Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests. Observation IID values were significantly smaller than those generated by the permutation procedure. We conclude that these male chimpanzees actively maintain cohesion when out of sight, and that auditory communication is one likely mechanism by which they do so. We discuss mechanisms by which chimpanzees may maintain the level of cohesion observed. This study provides a first analysis of spatial group cohesion over large distances in forest chimpanzees using high-resolution tracking, and illustrates the utility of such data for quantifying socio-ecological processes in primate ecology.

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“…Mental representations about the whereabouts of living things such as other group members, predators, or prey are likely to be advantageous for many animals, especially in conditions of poor visibility [ 1 , 2 ]. Noë & Laporte called this ability “socio-spatial cognition” [ 1 ]; it can be seen as a valuable cognitive ability that involves spatially mapping others by using auditory information such as vocalizations or other auditory cues.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Vervet monkeys ( Chlorocebus pygerythrus ) were shown to mentally track out-of-sight conspecifics through playbacks of their vocalizations [ 1 ]. The monkeys responded more when a group member appeared to be implausibly displaced, suggesting the ability to mentally follow invisible displacements of familiar individuals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here we tested whether cats hold mental representations of others and spatially map others based on auditory information in the form of vocalizations. To this aim, we presented cats with “teleportation”-like scenarios as used in studies with vervet monkeys [ 1 ] and meerkats [ 16 ]. In Experiment 1, the owner’s voice was played back sequentially from two separate locations, in a simulation of apparent teleportation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Socio-spatial cognition in cats: Mentally mapping owner’s location from voice

et al. 2021

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Many animals probably hold mental representations about the whereabouts of others; this is a form of socio-spatial cognition. We tested whether cats mentally map the spatial position of their owner or a familiar cat to the source of the owner’s or familiar cat’s vocalization. In Experiment 1, we placed one speaker outside a familiar room (speaker 1) and another (speaker 2) inside the room, as far as possible from speaker 1, then we left the subject alone in the room. In the habituation phase, the cat heard its owner’s voice calling its name five times from speaker 1. In the test phase, shortly after the 5th habituation phase vocalization, one of the two speakers played either the owner’s voice or a stranger’s voice calling the cat’s name once. There were four test combinations of speaker location and sound: SamesoundSamelocation, SamesoundDifflocation, DiffsoundSamelocation, DiffsoundDifflocation. In line with our prediction, cats showed most surprise in the SamesoundDifflocation condition, where the owner suddenly seemed to be in a new place. This reaction disappeared when we used cat vocalizations (Experiment 2) or non-vocal sounds (Experiment 3) as the auditory stimuli. Our results suggest that cats have mental representations about their out-of-sight owner linked to hearing the owner’s voice, indicating a previously unidentified socio-spatial cognitive ability.

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Socio-spatial cognition in vervet monkeys

Cited by 39 publications

References 85 publications

Animal cognition and the evolution of human language: why we cannot focus solely on communication

Animal cognition and the evolution of human language: why we cannot focus solely on communication

Spatial cohesion of adult male chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire

Socio-spatial cognition in cats: Mentally mapping owner’s location from voice

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