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Author Kitchen, D.M.; Cheney, D.L.; Seyfarth, R.M.
Title (up) 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 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
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Author Seyfarth, R.M.; Cheney, D.L.
Title (up) 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 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
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Author Seyfarth, R.M.; Cheney, D.L.
Title (up) Meaning and mind in monkeys Type Journal Article
Year 1992 Publication Scientific American Abbreviated Journal Sci Am
Volume 267 Issue 6 Pages 122-128
Keywords Animals; Behavior, Animal; Female; *Haplorhini; Male; Speech; *Vocalization, Animal
Abstract
Address University of Pennsylvania
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 0036-8733 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:1439710 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 701
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Author Seyfarth, R.M.; Cheney, D.L.; Marler, P.
Title (up) Monkey responses to three different alarm calls: evidence of predator classification and semantic communication Type Journal Article
Year 1980 Publication Science (New York, N.Y.) Abbreviated Journal Science
Volume 210 Issue 4471 Pages 801-803
Keywords *Animal Communication; Animals; Behavior, Animal/*physiology; Cercopithecidae/*physiology; *Fear; Female; Male; Predatory Behavior; Vocalization, Animal
Abstract Vervet monkeys give different alarm calls to different predators. Recordings of the alarms played back when predators were absent caused the monkeys to run into trees for leopard alarms, look up for eagle alarms, and look down for snake alarms. Adults call primarily to leopards, martial eagles, and pythons, but infants give leopard alarms to various mammals, eagle alarms to many birds, and snake alarms to various snakelike objects. Predator classification improves with age and experience.
Address
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 0036-8075 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:7433999 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 351
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Author Seyfarth, R.M.; Cheney, D.L.; Bergman, T.J.
Title (up) Primate social cognition and the origins of language Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Trends in Cognitive Sciences Abbreviated Journal Trends. Cognit. Sci.
Volume 9 Issue 6 Pages 264-266
Keywords Animals; *Cognition; Humans; *Language; Papio; Psychological Theory; Social Behavior; *Social Perception
Abstract Are the cognitive mechanisms underlying language unique, or can similar mechanisms be found in other domains? Recent field experiments demonstrate that baboons' knowledge of their companions' social relationships is based on discrete-valued traits (identity, rank, kinship) that are combined to create a representation of social relations that is hierarchically structured, open-ended, rule-governed, and independent of sensory modality. The mechanisms underlying language might have evolved from the social knowledge of our pre-linguistic primate ancestors.
Address Departments of Biology and Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 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 1364-6613 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15925802 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 343
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Author Walters, J.R.; Seyfarth, R.M.
Title (up) Primate Societies Type Miscellaneous
Year 1987 Publication Abbreviated Journal
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Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4858
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Author Rendall, D.; Cheney, D.L.; Seyfarth, R.M.
Title (up) 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 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
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Author Cheney, D.L.; Seyfarth, R.M.
Title (up) Recognition of other individuals' social relationships by female baboons Type Journal Article
Year 1999 Publication Animal Behaviour. Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.
Volume 58 Issue 1 Pages 67-75
Keywords
Abstract We describe a series of playback experiments designed to test whether free-ranging baboons, Papio cynocephalus ursinus, recognize the calls of other group members and also associate signallers with their close genetic relatives. Pairs of unrelated females were played sequences of calls that mimicked a fight between their relatives. As controls, the same females heard sequences that involved either (1) only the more dominant female's relative or (2) neither of the females' relatives. When call sequences involved their relatives, subjects looked towards the speaker for a longer duration than when the sequences involved nonkin. When the sequences involved the other female's relative, they also looked towards that female. Subjects did not look towards one another when call sequences involved nonkin. Dominant subjects were more likely to supplant their subordinate partners following playbacks of sequences that mimicked a dispute between their relatives than following the two control trials. In contrast, both subjects were more likely to approach one another and to interact in a friendly manner following the two control trials than following the test trial. Results indicate that female baboons recognize the screams and threat grunts not only of their own close relatives but also of unrelated individuals. They also replicate previous studies in suggesting that female monkeys recognize the close associates of other individuals and adjust their interactions with others according to recent events involving individuals other than themselves. Copyright 1999 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
Address Departments of Biology and Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
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 0003-3472 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:10413542 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 346
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Author Cheney, D.L.; Seyfarth, R.M.
Title (up) Reconciliation and redirected aggression in vervet monkeys, Behaviour Type Journal Article
Year 1989 Publication Behaviour Abbreviated Journal Behaviour
Volume 110 Issue Pages 258-275
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Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4865
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Author Cheney, D.L.; Seyfarth, R.M.
Title (up) Reconciliatory grunts by dominant female baboons influence victims' behaviour Type Journal Article
Year 1997 Publication Animal Behaviour. Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.
Volume 54 Issue 2 Pages 409-418
Keywords
Abstract Following aggressive interactions, dominant female baboons, Papio cynocephalus ursinusoccasionally grunt to their victims. To examine the effect of these apparently reconciliatory grunts on victims' subsequent behaviour, a series of playback experiments was designed to mimic reconciliation. Victims were played their opponents' grunts in the minutes immediately following a fight and then observed for half an hour. After hearing these grunts, victims approached their former opponents and also tolerated their opponents' approaches at significantly higher rates than they did under control conditions. They were also supplanted by their opponents at significantly lower rates. By contrast, playbacks of control females' grunts did not influence victims' behaviour. Playbacks of reconciliatory grunts did not increase the rate at which opponents approached or initiated friendly interactions with their former victims. Playbacks of reconciliatory grunts, therefore, appeared to influence victims', but not opponents', perception of recent events.
Address Departments of Biology and Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
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 0003-3472 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:9268473 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 347
Permanent link to this record