Ethologie animale et humaine, EthoS, UMR6552-CNRS, Université de Rennes 1, Station Biologique, 35380 Paimpont, France.
Biol Lett. 2010 Jun 23;6(3):328. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0875. Epub 2010 Jan 6.
The observed respect and attention to elders' speech in traditional cultures appears to have a 'universal' component which questions its possible biological bases. Animals present differential attention to the vocalizations of other individuals according to their characteristics but little is known about the potential propensity to pay more attention to vocalizations of elders. On the basis of several hundreds of vocal exchanges recorded, here we show that aged female Campbell's monkeys (Cercopithecus campbelli), despite being significantly less 'loquacious' than their younger adult counterparts, elicit many more responses when calling. These findings show that attention to elders' vocal production appears in non-human primates, leading to new lines of questioning on human culture and language evolution.
在传统文化中，人们对长辈言语的尊重和关注似乎具有“普遍性”，这引发了对其可能的生物学基础的质疑。动物会根据个体的特征对其他个体的发声表现出不同程度的关注，但对于它们是否更倾向于关注长辈的发声，人们知之甚少。基于数百次记录的声音交流，我们发现，尽管年老的雌性坎贝尔氏冕猴（Cercopithecus campbelli）的话比年轻的成年同类少得多，但在鸣叫时会引起更多的回应。这些发现表明，非人类灵长类动物也会关注长辈的发声，这为人类文化和语言进化提出了新的问题。
