Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
Benin School of Computer Science and Engineering, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
Science. 2024 Aug 30;385(6712):996-1003. doi: 10.1126/science.adp3757. Epub 2024 Aug 29.
Humans, dolphins, and elephants are the only known species that vocally label their conspecifics. It remains unclear whether nonhuman primates share this ability. We recorded spontaneous "phee-call" dialogues between pairs of marmoset monkeys. We discovered that marmosets use these calls to vocally label their conspecifics. Moreover, they respond more consistently and correctly to calls that are specifically directed at them. Analysis of calls from multiple monkeys revealed that family members use similar calls and acoustic features to label others and perform vocal learning. These findings shed light on the complexities of social vocalizations among nonhuman primates and suggest that marmoset vocalizations may provide a model for understanding aspects of human language, thereby offering new insights into the evolution of social communication.
人类、海豚和大象是已知的能够对同种个体进行声音标记的物种。目前还不清楚非人类灵长类动物是否具有这种能力。我们记录了狨猴成对发出的自发“phee-call”对话。我们发现，狨猴会用这些叫声来对同种个体进行声音标记。此外，它们对特定指向自己的叫声反应更一致和准确。对多只猴子叫声的分析表明，家庭成员使用相似的叫声和声学特征来标记他人并进行声音学习。这些发现揭示了非人类灵长类动物社会发声的复杂性，并表明狨猴的发声可能为理解人类语言的某些方面提供了一个模型，从而为社会交流的进化提供了新的见解。
