Centre for Comparative and Evolutionary Psychology, Department of Psychology, King Henry Building, University of Portsmouth, PO1 2DY, Portsmouth, United Kingdom.
Emotion. 2011 Oct;11(5):1013-20. doi: 10.1037/a0022594.
Humans have the ability to replicate the emotional expressions of others even when they undergo different emotions. Such distinct responses of expressions, especially positive expressions, play a central role in everyday social communication of humans and may give the responding individuals important advantages in cooperation and communication. The present work examined laughter in chimpanzees to test whether nonhuman primates also use their expressions in such distinct ways. The approach was first to examine the form and occurrence of laugh replications (laughter after the laughter of others) and spontaneous laughter of chimpanzees during social play and then to test whether their laugh replications represented laugh-elicited laugh responses (laughter triggered by the laughter of others) by using a quantitative method designed to measure responses in natural social settings. The results of this study indicated that chimpanzees produce laugh-elicited laughter that is distinct in form and occurrence from their spontaneous laughter. These findings provide the first empirical evidence that nonhuman primates have the ability to replicate the expressions of others by producing expressions that differ in their underlying emotions and social implications. The data further showed that the laugh-elicited laugh responses of the subjects were closely linked to play maintenance, suggesting that chimpanzees might gain important cooperative and communicative advantages by responding with laughter to the laughter of their social partners. Notably, some chimpanzee groups of this study responded more with laughter than others, an outcome that provides empirical support of a socialization of expressions in great apes similar to that of humans.
人类有能力复制他人的情感表达，即使他们经历不同的情绪。这种独特的表情反应，尤其是积极的表情，在人类的日常社交交流中起着核心作用，并可能为做出反应的个体在合作和交流中带来重要优势。本研究旨在检验黑猩猩是否也以这种独特的方式使用它们的表情来发出笑声，从而检验非人类灵长类动物是否也能以这种独特的方式复制他人的表情。研究方法首先是观察黑猩猩在社交游戏中笑声的复制（他人发笑后自己发笑）和自发笑声的形式和发生情况，然后使用一种旨在测量自然社交环境中反应的定量方法，来检验它们的笑声复制是否代表被他人笑声引发的笑声反应（他人笑声引发的笑声）。研究结果表明，黑猩猩发出的被他人笑声引发的笑声在形式和发生上与自发笑声明显不同。这些发现首次提供了经验证据，表明非人类灵长类动物能够通过发出在潜在情绪和社会意义上有所不同的表情来复制他人的表情。这些数据进一步表明，被试的被他人笑声引发的笑声反应与游戏的维持密切相关，这表明黑猩猩通过对社交伙伴的笑声做出反应来获得重要的合作和交流优势。值得注意的是，本研究中的一些黑猩猩群体比其他群体更频繁地用笑声做出反应，这一结果为类人猿的表情社会化提供了经验支持，类似于人类的表情社会化。
