School of Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool L3 3AF, UK.
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6GG, UK.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2022 Sep 26;377(1860):20210295. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0295. Epub 2022 Aug 8.
Primate social bonds are described as being especially complex in their nature, and primates have unusually large brains for their body size compared to other mammals. Communication in primates has attracted considerable attention because of the important role it plays in social bonding. It has been proposed that differentiated social relationships are cognitively complex because primates need to continuously update their knowledge about different types of social bonds. Therefore, primates infer whether an opportunity for social interaction is rewarding (valuable to individual goals) based on their knowledge of the social relationships of the interactants. However, exposure to distraction and stress has detrimental effects on the dopaminergic system, suggesting that understanding social relationships as rewarding is affected in these conditions. This paper proposes that complex communication evolved to augment the capacity to form social relationships during stress through flexibly modifying intentionality in communication (audience checking, response waiting and elaboration). Intentional communication may upregulate dopamine dynamics to allow recognition that an interaction is rewarding during stress. By examining these associations between complexity of communication and stress, we provide new insights into the cognitive skills involved in forming social bonds in primates and the evolution of communication systems in both primates and humans. This article is part of the theme issue 'Cognition, communication and social bonds in primates'.
灵长类动物的社会关系在本质上被描述为特别复杂，与其他哺乳动物相比，灵长类动物的大脑相对于其体型来说非常大。灵长类动物的交流因其在社会联系中所起的重要作用而引起了相当大的关注。有人提出，有区别的社会关系具有认知复杂性，因为灵长类动物需要不断更新它们对不同类型的社会联系的了解。因此，灵长类动物根据它们对互动者的社会关系的了解，推断社交互动的机会是否有回报（对个人目标有价值）。然而，分心和压力的暴露对多巴胺能系统有不利影响，这表明在这些情况下，理解社会关系的回报受到影响。本文提出，复杂的交流是为了在压力下通过灵活地改变交流中的意向性（听众检查、等待回应和阐述）来增强形成社会关系的能力而进化的。有意的交流可以上调多巴胺动力学，从而允许在压力下识别出互动是有回报的。通过研究这些复杂的交流与压力之间的关系，我们为灵长类动物形成社会联系所涉及的认知技能以及灵长类动物和人类的交流系统的进化提供了新的见解。本文是主题为“灵长类动物的认知、交流和社会关系”的一部分。
