Monkey Talk
Monkeys use 'words' to talk to each other - just like humans
MATT DICKINSON
SCIENTISTS in Scotland have found the first evidence that monkeys can string "words" together to communicate in a way similar to humans, it was reported yesterday.
Researchers at St Andrews University discovered that putty-nosed monkeys in West Africa share the human ability to combine different sounds to mean different things.
During observations of the species in the Gashaka Gumti National Park, Nigeria, Kate Arnold and Klaus Zuberbühler found the creatures use their two main call types - "pyows" and "hacks" - to alert each other against predators.
A string of pyows warn against a loitering leopard, while a burst of hacks indicate a hovering eagle.
But a sentence made up of several pyows followed by a few hacks tells the group to move away to safer terrain.
Dr Arnold, a primate psychologist, discovered the phenomena by playing variations of the calls back to the monkeys and seeing how they behaved.
She said it showed the animals can encode fresh information by combining two existing ones, rather than creating a new sound. "These calls were not produced randomly and a number of distinct patterns emerged."
Previously, it was thought that animal communication systems used one particular signal to mean one particular thing.
Dr Arnold said: "This is the first good example of animal calls being combined in meaningful ways."
Dr Zuberbühler added: "This is the first good evidence of a syntax-like natural communication system in a non-human species."
The research has been carried out by the pair over the past three years in Africa, and is to appear in the science journal Nature.
Michael Hopkin, from the publication, said: "These building blocks that they use are being strung together - you could describe them as words."
This article: http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=737052006
MATT DICKINSON
SCIENTISTS in Scotland have found the first evidence that monkeys can string "words" together to communicate in a way similar to humans, it was reported yesterday.
Researchers at St Andrews University discovered that putty-nosed monkeys in West Africa share the human ability to combine different sounds to mean different things.
During observations of the species in the Gashaka Gumti National Park, Nigeria, Kate Arnold and Klaus Zuberbühler found the creatures use their two main call types - "pyows" and "hacks" - to alert each other against predators.
A string of pyows warn against a loitering leopard, while a burst of hacks indicate a hovering eagle.
But a sentence made up of several pyows followed by a few hacks tells the group to move away to safer terrain.
Dr Arnold, a primate psychologist, discovered the phenomena by playing variations of the calls back to the monkeys and seeing how they behaved.
She said it showed the animals can encode fresh information by combining two existing ones, rather than creating a new sound. "These calls were not produced randomly and a number of distinct patterns emerged."
Previously, it was thought that animal communication systems used one particular signal to mean one particular thing.
Dr Arnold said: "This is the first good example of animal calls being combined in meaningful ways."
Dr Zuberbühler added: "This is the first good evidence of a syntax-like natural communication system in a non-human species."
The research has been carried out by the pair over the past three years in Africa, and is to appear in the science journal Nature.
Michael Hopkin, from the publication, said: "These building blocks that they use are being strung together - you could describe them as words."
This article: http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=737052006
posted by Cheerful Robot at 7:05 AM
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