Beachem Elizabeth, Ghione Caleb, Soto Halena, van den Berg Lisette, Stanford Craig
Department of Integrative and Evolutionary Biology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Department of Molecular and Computational Biology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Anim Cogn. 2025 May 19;28(1):38. doi: 10.1007/s10071-025-01961-2.
While spoken language is unique to humans, many features of human communication are shared with great apes, including the use of signals in multiple modalities such as vocalizations, gestures, and facial expressions. Communication signals can be unimodal (involving a single modality) or multimodal (combining multiple modalities simultaneously). Here, we examined age-related differences in bonobo (Pan paniscus) unimodal and multimodal communication signals. We assessed all vocalizations, gestures, facial expressions, and multimodal combinations produced by captive bonobos across a variety of behavioral contexts. All occurrences of communication signals were collected via focal observations from 12 individuals ranging from 6 months to 44 years of age. All individuals produced multimodal communication signals but all bonobos, regardless of age, produced multimodal signals at lower frequencies than unimodal signals. Age had a significant effect with younger bonobos producing more multimodal signals than older individuals (p < 0.001). The infant and juveniles produced the most multimodal signals and there was an approximately 6% increase in unimodal signals per age year increase. These findings indicate a developmental shift toward unimodal signals as bonobos age. Behavioral context was predictive of signal type usage with an increase of multimodal signals in agonistic (p < 0.001), play (p < 0.001), and sexual contexts (p = 0.001). This indicates that context is important for bonobo modality with multimodal signaling occurring more in "high-risk/high-reward" contexts where proper signal comprehension is vital. This study represents an overview of multimodal communication across bonobo life stages, offering further insights into primate communication patterns and developmental trajectories.
虽然口语是人类独有的，但人类交流的许多特征与类人猿是共有的，包括使用多种方式的信号，如发声、手势和面部表情。交流信号可以是单通道的（涉及单一方式）或多通道的（同时结合多种方式）。在这里，我们研究了倭黑猩猩单通道和多通道交流信号中与年龄相关的差异。我们评估了圈养倭黑猩猩在各种行为背景下产生的所有发声、手势、面部表情和多通道组合。通过对12只年龄从6个月到44岁的个体进行焦点观察，收集了所有交流信号的出现情况。所有个体都产生多通道交流信号，但所有倭黑猩猩，无论年龄大小，产生多通道信号的频率都低于单通道信号。年龄有显著影响，幼年倭黑猩猩比老年个体产生更多的多通道信号（p < 0.001）。婴儿和幼年个体产生的多通道信号最多，并且每增加一岁单通道信号大约增加6%。这些发现表明，随着倭黑猩猩年龄的增长，交流信号向单通道信号转变。行为背景可以预测信号类型的使用情况，在争斗（p < 0.001）、玩耍（p < 0.001）和性情境（p = 0.001）中多通道信号会增加。这表明背景对于倭黑猩猩的信号方式很重要，多通道信号在“高风险/高回报”情境中出现得更多，在这些情境中正确理解信号至关重要。这项研究概述了倭黑猩猩不同生命阶段的多通道交流，为灵长类动物的交流模式和发育轨迹提供了进一步的见解。
