Lahiff Nicole J, Clay Zanna, Epping Amanda J, Taglialatela Jared P, Townsend Simon W, Slocombe Katie E
Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Centre for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
R Soc Open Sci. 2025 Mar 5;12(3):241901. doi: 10.1098/rsos.241901. eCollection 2025 Mar.
Non-human vocalizations carrying information regarding external events have been likened to referential words and are thus integral for exploring the origins of linguistic reference. Previous research suggests receivers decode this referential information and some studies have indicated that such calls can, like in humans, evoke mental representations of the referent in receivers. However, the nature of these representations remains ambiguous. Specifically, whether calls elicit affect-based representations (e.g. signaller fear after alarm calls) or object-based representations (e.g. threats encountered by signallers after alarm calls), or both, in listeners remains untested. To investigate this, we conducted a match-to-sample task with a language-competent bonobo (Kanzi) asking him to match playbacks of conspecific alarm and food-associated calls to lexigrams representing either affect-based ('scare', 'surprise') or object-based ('snake', 'food') content. Kanzi matched alarm calls to 'scare' and 'snake' lexigrams at above chance levels regardless of caller familiarity but did not match food-associated calls to either 'surprise' or 'food' targets. We propose environmental cues are required to interpret food-associated calls that occur across a variety of contexts. These findings suggest bonobo alarm calls evoke object- and affect-based representations for Kanzi, indicating the mechanisms underlying the perception of non-human vocalizations may be more similar to those in language than previously thought.
携带有关外部事件信息的非人类发声被比作指示性词语，因此对于探索语言指称的起源至关重要。先前的研究表明，接收者能够解码这种指称信息，并且一些研究表明，此类叫声能够像在人类中一样，在接收者心中唤起所指对象的心理表征。然而，这些表征的本质仍然模糊不清。具体而言，叫声在听众心中引发的是基于情感的表征（例如警报声后信号发出者的恐惧）还是基于对象的表征（例如警报声后信号发出者遇到的威胁），或者两者皆有，仍未得到验证。为了对此进行研究，我们对一只具备语言能力的倭黑猩猩（坎齐）进行了一项样本匹配任务，要求它将同种个体的警报声和与食物相关的叫声的回放与代表基于情感（“害怕”“惊讶”）或基于对象（“蛇”“食物”）内容的图形文字进行匹配。无论对发出叫声的个体是否熟悉，坎齐将警报声与“害怕”和“蛇”的图形文字匹配的概率都高于随机水平，但它没有将与食物相关的叫声与“惊讶”或“食物”目标进行匹配。我们提出，需要环境线索来解读在各种情境中出现的与食物相关的叫声。这些发现表明，倭黑猩猩的警报声在坎齐心中唤起了基于对象和基于情感的表征，这表明对非人类发声的感知机制可能比之前认为的更类似于语言中的机制。
