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  • Chimpanzees gesture back and forth quickly like in human conversations

    From Primum Sapienti@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jul 22 22:44:32 2024
    https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1051557

    When people are having a conversation, they
    rapidly take turns speaking and sometimes
    even interrupt. Now, researchers who have
    collected the largest ever dataset of
    chimpanzee “conversations” have found that
    they communicate back and forth using
    gestures following the same rapid-fire
    pattern. The findings are reported on
    July 22 in the journal Current Biology.

    “While human languages are incredibly
    diverse, a hallmark we all share is that
    our conversations are structured with
    fast-paced turns of just 200 milliseconds
    on average,” said Catherine Hobaiter
    (@NakedPrimate) at the University of
    St Andrews, UK.

    “We found that the timing of chimpanzee
    gesture and human conversational turn-taking
    is similar and very fast, which suggests
    that similar evolutionary mechanisms are
    driving these social, communicative
    interactions,” says Gal Badihi
    (@Gal_Badihi), the study’s first author.
    ...

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Pandora@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jul 27 12:33:34 2024
    Op 23-07-2024 om 06:44 schreef Primum Sapienti:

    https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1051557

    When people are having a conversation, they
    rapidly take turns speaking and sometimes
    even interrupt. Now, researchers who have
    collected the largest ever dataset of
    chimpanzee “conversations” have found that
    they communicate back and forth using
    gestures following the same rapid-fire
    pattern. The findings are reported on
    July 22 in the journal Current Biology.

    “While human languages are incredibly
    diverse, a hallmark we all share is that
    our conversations are structured with
    fast-paced turns of just 200 milliseconds
    on average,” said Catherine Hobaiter
    (@NakedPrimate) at the University of
    St Andrews, UK.

    “We found that the timing of chimpanzee
    gesture and human conversational turn-taking
    is similar and very fast, which suggests
    that similar evolutionary mechanisms are
    driving these social, communicative
    interactions,” says Gal Badihi
    (@Gal_Badihi), the study’s first author.
    ...

    See also:

    Chimpanzee utterances refute purported missing links for novel
    vocalizations and syllabic speech

    Abstract

    Nonhuman great apes have been claimed to be unable to learn human words
    due to a lack of the necessary neural circuitry. We recovered original
    footage of two enculturated chimpanzees uttering the word “mama” and subjected recordings to phonetic analysis. Our analyses demonstrate that chimpanzees are capable of syllabic production, achieving
    consonant-to-vowel phonetic contrasts via the simultaneous recruitment
    and coupling of voice, jaw and lips. In an online experiment, human
    listeners naive to the recordings’ origins reliably perceived chimpanzee utterances as syllabic utterances, primarily as “ma-ma”, among foil syllables. Our findings demonstrate that in the absence of direct
    data-driven examination, great ape vocal production capacities have been underestimated. Chimpanzees possess the neural building blocks necessary
    for speech.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-67005-w

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Primum Sapienti@21:1/5 to Pandora on Sun Jul 28 22:55:45 2024
    Pandora wrote:
    Op 23-07-2024 om 06:44 schreef Primum Sapienti:

    https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1051557


    See also:

    Chimpanzee utterances refute purported missing links for novel
    vocalizations and syllabic speech

    Abstract

    Nonhuman great apes have been claimed to be unable to learn human words
    due to a lack of the necessary neural circuitry. We recovered original footage of two enculturated chimpanzees uttering the word “mama” and subjected recordings to phonetic analysis. Our analyses demonstrate that chimpanzees are capable of syllabic production, achieving
    consonant-to-vowel phonetic contrasts via the simultaneous recruitment
    and coupling of voice, jaw and lips. In an online experiment, human
    listeners naive to the recordings’ origins reliably perceived chimpanzee utterances as syllabic utterances, primarily as “ma-ma”, among foil syllables. Our findings demonstrate that in the absence of direct
    data-driven examination, great ape vocal production capacities have been underestimated. Chimpanzees possess the neural building blocks necessary
    for speech.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-67005-w

    Hmmm. This seems to have just made the recent news.

    Link has a video.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/25/science/chimpanzee-speech-mama.html

    The Chimps Who Learned to Say ‘Mama’
    Old recordings show captive chimps uttering
    the word, which some scientists believe may
    offer clues to the origins of human speech.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)