Chimpanzees and their attention getting noises
Chimpanzees are our closest living relative. They, like us, have close family bonds and are known to be very intelligent. Chimpanzees use facial expressions, vocalizations, and body language to communicate with members in their group. Scientists identified over 32 different call types. Some of these are food calls while others include calls to get the attention of the humans around them. The types of calls of captive and wild chimpanzees differ. For example chimpanzees raised in captivity have specific calls for when there is a human and a food source near by so that they can get the attention of the human and get the food.
In 2005 there was a study done to test the idea that chimpanzees have context specific vocalizations. Others studies also showed that chimpanzees produce manual gestures on purpose. In these situations the chimpanzee only made the gesture when the humans were facing them. The main aim of this study was to see under what conditions a chimpanzee would make a “raspberry,” and extended grunts which were found to be the two main attention getting expressions. Three main conditions were tested: 1) when a human alone (HA) was placed in front of the cage; 2) when food alone was placed in front of the cage (FA); 3) and when a human and food were placed in front of the cage, with the human in close proximity to the food (HF). For food the chimpanzees were given bananas. The human experimenter had worked frequently with all of the chimpanzees and provided the food over the course of 15 years. The researchers hypothesized that the chimpanzees would use attention getting noises to get the attention of humans. This would mean that the combination of people and food in the presence of the chimpanzee would cause the most reaction by the chimps.
During the observations of the chimpanzees, the number of food calls, and attention getting sounds were recorded once every minute. Each of the three tests was done in thirty second intervals. Like was hypothesized, the number of attention getting sounds were produced the most in the presence of food and a human, more so than in the presence of a human alone or food alone. The study also showed that there was not a very large difference in attention getting calls between the HA and FA conditions. In the food alone conditions, however, the chimpanzees did give a food call more frequently than under conditions with just a human present. These results show that chimpanzees do use attention getting sounds in order to get the attention of a human close by and manipulate them. This also shows that chimpanzees act different depending on the context of the situation. Chimpanzees produce specific noises intentionally for different purposes.
HEH
posted by PWH @ 9:53 PM
12 comments
12 Comments:
Your article about animal behavior in chimpanzees is well written and very interesting. It is exciting that scientists have identified at least 32 different calls in chimps and are doing more research to determine the meaning of the noises that are made when these calls are put together, especially considering that humans only have 26 letters in their own English alphabet. I enjoyed reading about the 2005 study, however I think your article would be stronger if it included an example of another study centered on the vocalizations and gestures used by chimps in captivity. How early do captive creatures begin using attention getting noises? Do they differentiate between who is giving them the food? (Is the same behavior displayed for strangers?) Also you may want to check your work for grammatical errors.
It is always interesting to learn about the intelligence of other species, especially of those that are genetically closely related to humans. Chimpanzees are a fine example. Even though they haven't developed a highly sophisticated dialogue, they are able to communicate with their own species and with humans through facial expressions, and body language. Studies have also shown that they are able learn sign language, and according to what I just read, they have context specific vocalizations. From this information I can easily believe that chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor and that somewhere down the line we diverged from each other. They are not as intelligent as human beings, but they are by far the second most intelligent species on the planet. I believe that a long time from now, if evolution favors them, they can easily become equal to the humans being of the present. They will develop a sophisticated language as have we and they will be the second most intelligent species after humans, if we still co-exist.
Daniel Fortin
fortind6
I found your article to be quite compelling. I found it interesting that the chimpanzees reacted similarly in the human alone and food alone tests. I would have expected the chimps to react more outwardly to the food being presented alone (as opposed to the human being presented alone). It seems to me that the presence of food alone would excite the chimps more as it is its primary motivation (presumably). The fact that the chimps reacted similarly in the FA and HA tests may be a testament to their intelligence, as it is indicative of them recognizing that a human can provide the resource they desire. Interestingly, I can remember my dog acting similarly; when he wanted food he would simply bark like crazy until I got him a bone. It seems to me that these animals are much more intelligent than they let on (one might argue that they have us trained).
Another interesting test may involve testing the chimps’ responses to different kinds of food, or testing differences in food preference across the sexes. For instance, perhaps females become more expressive in the presence of one kind of food, and males become more expressive in the presence of a different kind of food. Then again, food preference could be similar between the sexes. It would provide an interesting test nonetheless. Overall I thought this was an interesting and well written article.
posted by AKE
I read your article about the chimps and you said that researchers have discovered 32 different calls for communicating with them, do you know what they are? I like the example that you used because it's totally true when looking it. They are just like us mostly babies because when babies are hungry, they cry, after the mom gives him/her the bottle and puts them back in their crib they might start crying again not because of an empty stomach, but because they want the mom's attention too. I can understand why the experiment with both food and a person was more affective,because most of the time what counts is the attention.
etienne7
The idea that chimpanzees are closely related to humans are becoming more and more familiar to everybody as science progress. The last statement that says that chimps are as smart as humans was incorrect because it is also known to everybody that Homo sapiens are the most intelligent species on the planet. We can clearly solve analytical problems that no other species can. Another interesting point I wanted to make is that shouldn't there be more DNA proof to how close humans are to chimpanzees in your article other than just behavior proximity to humans? Overall, it is a topic that raises many questions and has the potenial to be expanded on.
-Dan Carlo Flores
Chimpanzees are always interesting to learn about. They are extremely intelligence animals. They learned to make to help acquire food. They are analytical and problem-solvers, clearly capable of insight and complex "cognitive performance" in both the wild and in captivity, and particularly adept at analyzing relative relationships. They can also communicate by using hand and face gesture, and as I just learned they can context specific vocalizations. Reading about the reseach done on chimpanzee communicate in your article I believe made for a strong article, but your could of been strong if you elaborated to the results of the indepedent variables.
Jonesn7
The fact that chimps in captivity and in the wild use different calls is an interesting fact. I like how you provided information about the chimps in captivity, but if you could find some about a study done on wild chimps in a similar experiment it might be helpful to prove that they are different types of calls. On this fact I think that it may be helpful because animals in captivity do react to the hand that feeds them. Going on what ake said about their dog barking until given a bone, I have a pet leopard gecko and whenever i sit near the cage he comes out of his hut because that is where I sit when I feed him. Overall an interesting post, I would just like to see some research on wild chimps.
Very interesting article. What kinds of manual gestures did the chimps do? It would also be interesting to know a little bit about the differences between the 32 call types. But of course, that might be hard to describe. Were the attention-getting sounds they got from the experiment specifically the "raspberry" sound or were there some others as well?
I found this to be a very interesting topic. I have always been interested in monkeys, especially chimpanzees. I think the fact that the chimpanzees in captivity have different calls and gestures than those in the wild is amazing. I also thought this article was well written and that you presented the data in an interesting manner. I noticed in the first paragraph that you used the word "scientist" and it should actually be "scientists". One question that I had was; during the study, what was the food they placed in front of the cage? Was it something that is normally in the chimpanzees diet?
Chimpanzee's behavior is very interesting. As the fact that chimpanzee is most reletated to human shows, the behavior is as complicated as that of human. In this experiment, I can understand that the result that "the number of attention getting sounds were produced the most in HF conditions" because this condition is more complicated than the other conditions. Chimpanzee may understand that the chimpanzee has to get the attention of human in order to get food.
I think that study of chimpanzee can tell us not only the relationship between chimpanzee and human but also the relationship between chimpanzee and other animals and between human and other animals.
This article was very intersting.
I find this article to be interesting because while we are learning the behavior of another species, we are also observing communication on a more fundamental level. Perhaps we can apply what is learned from Chimpanzee vocalizations to how communication is developed in Humans. I overall thought that the blog was well written and that the use of links made it easy to reach the articles and find more information as needed. I would like to see more discussion in the conclusion of the different sounds themselves for each situation instead of just how frequent the sounds were made.
I found your article about Chimpanzees very intriguing. I find it amazing that Chimps have been found to use vocalization to get food from humans. It would be interesting if that trait was present in other members of the great ape family, such as bonobos, orangutans, and gorillas. Since chimpanzees are the closest relative to humans, they have more similarities than other apes.
Post a Comment
<< Home