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Author Rendall, D.; Cheney, D.L.; Seyfarth, R.M.
Title Proximate factors mediating “contact” calls in adult female baboons (Papio cynocephalus ursinus) and their infants Type Journal Article
Year 2000 Publication Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. : 1983) Abbreviated Journal J Comp Psychol
Volume 114 Issue 1 Pages (down) 36-46
Keywords Animals; Animals, Wild; Botswana; Female; *Maternal Behavior; Motivation; Orientation; Papio/*psychology; Social Environment; Sound Spectrography; *Vocalization, Animal
Abstract “Contact” calls are widespread in social mammals and birds, but the proximate factors that motivate call production and mediate their contact function remain poorly specified. Field study of chacma baboons (Papio cynocephalus ursinus) revealed that contact barks in adult females were motivated by separation both from the group at large and from their dependent infants. A variety of social and ecological factors affect the probability of separation from either one or both. Results of simultaneous observations and a playback experiment indicate that the contact function of calling between mothers and infants was mediated by occasional maternal retrieval rather than coordinated call exchange. Mothers recognized the contact barks of their own infants and often were strongly motivated to locate them. However, mothers did not produce contact barks in reply unless they themselves were at risk of becoming separated from the group.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, USA. d.rendall@uleth.ca
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0735-7036 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:10739310 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 695
Permanent link to this record
 
 
Author Seyfarth, R.M.; Cheney, D.L.
Title Meaning and emotion in animal vocalizations Type Journal Article
Year 2003 Publication Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Abbreviated Journal Ann N Y Acad Sci
Volume 1000 Issue Pages (down) 32-55
Keywords Acoustics; *Affect; Animals; Behavior, Animal; *Intention; Posture; Sound Spectrography; *Vocalization, Animal
Abstract Historically, a dichotomy has been drawn between the semantic communication of human language and the apparently emotional calls of animals. Current research paints a more complicated picture. Just as scientists have identified elements of human speech that reflect a speaker's emotions, field experiments have shown that the calls of many animals provide listeners with information about objects and events in the environment. Like human speech, therefore, animal vocalizations simultaneously provide others with information that is both semantic and emotional. In support of this conclusion, we review the results of field experiments on the natural vocalizations of African vervet monkeys, diana monkeys, baboons, and suricates (a South African mongoose). Vervet and diana monkeys give acoustically distinct alarm calls in response to the presence of leopards, eagles, and snakes. Each alarm call type elicits a different, adaptive response from others nearby. Field experiments demonstrate that listeners compare these vocalizations not just according to their acoustic properties but also according to the information they convey. Like monkeys, suricates give acoustically distinct alarm calls in response to different predators. Within each predator class, the calls also differ acoustically according to the signaler's perception of urgency. Like speech, therefore, suricate alarm calls convey both semantic and emotional information. The vocalizations of baboons, like those of many birds and mammals, are individually distinctive. As a result, when one baboon hears a sequence of calls exchanged between two or more individuals, the listener acquires information about social events in its group. Baboons, moreover, are skilled “eavesdroppers:” their response to different call sequences provides evidence of the sophisticated information they acquire from other individuals' vocalizations. Baboon males give loud “wahoo” calls during competitive displays. Like other vocalizations, these highly emotional calls provide listeners with information about the caller's dominance rank, age, and competitive ability. Although animal vocalizations, like human speech, simultaneously encode both semantic and emotional information, they differ from language in at least one fundamental respect. Although listeners acquire rich information from a caller's vocalization, callers do not, in the human sense, intend to provide it. Listeners acquire information as an inadvertent consequence of signaler behavior.
Address Departments of Psychology and Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA. seyfarth@psych.upenn.edu
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0077-8923 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:14766619 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 688
Permanent link to this record
 
 
Author Kitchen, D.M.; Cheney, D.L.; Seyfarth, R.M.
Title Male chacma baboons (Papio hamadryas ursinus) discriminate loud call contests between rivals of different relative ranks Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Animal cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 8 Issue 1 Pages (down) 1-6
Keywords Acoustic Stimulation; Animals; *Discrimination Learning; *Hierarchy, Social; Male; Papio hamadryas/*psychology; *Social Dominance; *Vocalization, Animal
Abstract Males in multi-male groups of chacma baboons (Papio hamadryas ursinus) in Botswana compete for positions in a linear dominance hierarchy. Previous research suggests that males treat different categories of rivals differently; competitive displays between males of similar rank are more frequent and intense than those between disparately ranked males. Here we test whether males also respond differently to male-male interactions in which they are not directly involved, using playbacks of the loud 'wahoo' calls exchanged between competing males in aggressive displays. We played paired sequences of vocal contests between two adjacently ranked and two disparately ranked males to ten subjects, half ranking below the signalers in the call sequences and half above. Subjects who ranked above the two signalers showed stronger responses than lower-ranking subjects. Higher-ranking subjects also responded more strongly to sequences involving disparately ranked, as opposed to adjacently ranked opponents, suggesting that they recognized those individuals' relative ranks. Strong responses to sequences between disparately ranked opponents might have occurred either because such contests typically involve resources of high fitness value (defense of meat, estrous females or infants vulnerable to infanticide) or because they indicate a sudden change in one contestant's condition. In contrast, subjects who ranked lower than the signalers responded equally strongly to both types of sequences. These subjects may have been able to distinguish between the two categories of opponents but did not respond differently to them because they had little to lose or gain by a rank reversal between males that already ranked higher than they did.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. dkitchen@psych.upenn.edu
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15164259 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 687
Permanent link to this record
 
 
Author Seyfarth, R.M.; Cheney, D.L.
Title The Structure of Social Knowledge in Monkeys Type Book Chapter
Year 2003 Publication Animal Social Complexity: Intelligence, Culture, and Individualized Societies Abbreviated Journal
Volume Issue Pages (down)
Keywords
Abstract
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Harvard University Press Place of Publication Cambridge, Massachusetts Editor F. B. M. de Waal; P. L. Tyack
Language English Summary Language Original Title Animal Social Complexity: Intelligence, Culture, and Individualized Societies
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN ISBN 978-0674009295 Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 464
Permanent link to this record
 
 
Author Cheney, D. l .; Seyfarth, R. M.
Title Social complexity and the information acquired during eavesdropping by primates and other animals Type Book Chapter
Year 2004 Publication Animal Communication networks Abbreviated Journal
Volume Issue Pages (down)
Keywords
Abstract In many of the studies reviewed in this book, eavesdropping takes the

following form: a subject has the opportunity to monitor, or eavesdrop upon, an

interaction between two other animals,Aand B. The subject then uses the information

obtained through these observations to assess A`s and B`s relative dominance

or attractiveness as a mate (e.g. Mennill et al., 2002; Ch. 2). For example, Oliveira

et al. (1998) found that male fighting fish Betta splendens that had witnessed two

other males involved in an aggressive interaction subsequently responded more

strongly to the loser of that interaction than the winner. Subjects-behaviour could

not have been influenced by any inherent differences between the two males, because

subjects responded equally strongly to the winner and the loser of competitive

interactions they had not observed. Similarly, Peake et al. (2001) presented

male great tits Parus major with the opportunity to monitor an apparent competitive

interaction between two strangers by simulating a singing contest using two

loudspeakers. The relative timing of the singing bouts (as measured by the degree

of overlap between the two songs) provided information about each “contestants”

relative status. Following the singing interaction, one of the “contestants” was

introduced into the male`s territory. Males responded significantly less strongly

to singers that had apparently just “lost” the interaction (see also McGregor &

Dabelsteen, 1996; Naguib et al., 1999; Ch. 2).

What information does an individual acquire when it eavesdrops on others?

In theory, an eavesdropper could acquire information of many different sorts:

about A, about B, about the relationship between A and B, or about the place of

Animal Communication Networks, ed. Peter K. McGregor. Published by Cambridge University Press.

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Cambridge University Press 2005.

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584 D. L. Cheney & R. M. Seyfarth

A`s and B`s relationship in a larger social framework. The exact information acquired

will probably reflect the particular species social structure. For example,

songbirds like great tits live in communities in which six or seven neighbours

surround each territory-holding male. Males appear to benefit from the knowledge

that certain individuals occupy specific areas (e.g. Brooks & Falls, 1975), that

competitive interactions between two different neighbours have particular outcomes,

and that these outcomes are stable over time. We would, therefore, expect

an eavesdropping great tit not only to learn that neighbour A was dominant to

neighbour B, for example, but also to form the expectation that A was likely to

defeat B in all future encounters. More speculatively, because the outcome of territorial

interactions are often site specific (reviewed by Bradbury & Vehrencamp,

1998), we would expect eavesdropping tits to learn further that A dominates B

in some areas but B dominates A in others. In contrast, the information gained

from monitoring neighbours interactions would unlikely be sufficient to allow

the eavesdropper to rank all of its neighbours in a linear dominance hierarchy,

because not all neighbouring males would come into contact with one another.

Such information would be difficult if not impossible to acquire; it might also be

of little functional value.

In contrast, species that live in large, permanent social groups have a much

greater opportunity to monitor the social interactions of many different individuals

simultaneously. Monkey species such as baboons Papio cynocephalus, for

example, typically live in groups of 80 or more individuals, which include several

matrilineal families arranged in a stable, linear dominance rank order (Silk et al.,

1999). Offspring assume ranks similar to those of their mothers, and females maintain

close bonds with their matrilineal kin throughout their lives. Cutting across

these stable long-term relationships based on rank and kinship are more transient

bonds: for example, the temporary associations formed between unrelated

females whose infants are of similar ages, and the “friendships” formed between

adult males and lactating females as an apparent adaptation against infanticide

(Palombit et al., 1997, 2001). In order to compete successfully within such groups, it

would seem advantageous for individuals to recognize who outranks whom, who

is closely bonded to whom, and who is likely to be allied to whom (Harcourt, 1988,

1992; Cheney & Seyfarth, 1990; see below). The ability to adopt a third party`s perspective

and discriminate among the social relationships that exist among others

would seem to be of great selective benefit.

In this chapter, we review evidence for eavesdropping in selected primate

species and we consider what sort of information is acquired when one individual

observes or listens in on the interactions of others. We then compare eavesdropping

by primates with eavesdropping in other animal species, focusing on both

potential differences and directions for further research
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Cambridge University Press Place of Publication Cambridge, Massachusetts Editor McGregor, P.K.
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 495
Permanent link to this record
 
 
Author Cheney, D.L.; Seyfarth, R.M.
Title How Monkeys See the World Type Miscellaneous
Year 1990 Publication Abbreviated Journal
Volume Issue Pages (down)
Keywords
Abstract
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4866
Permanent link to this record
 
 
Author Seyfarth, R. M.; Cheney, D. L.
Title Do monkeys understand their realtions? Type Book Chapter
Year 1988 Publication Machiavellian Intelligence Abbreviated Journal
Volume Issue Pages (down)
Keywords
Abstract
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Oxford University Press Place of Publication Oxford Editor Byrne, R.; Whiten, A.
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN ISBN 0-19-852175-8 Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5457
Permanent link to this record