Complex Sociality of Wild Chimpanzees Can Emerge from Laterality of Manual Gestures.

ABSTRACT: Humans are strongly lateralized for manual gestures at both individual and population levels. In contrast, the laterality bias in primates is less strong, leading some to suggest that lateralization evolved after the Pan and Homo lineages diverged. However, laterality in humans is also context-dependent, suggesting that observed differences in lateralization between primates and humans may be related to external factors such as the complexity of the social environment. Here we address this question in wild chimpanzees and examine the extent to which the laterality of manual gestures is associated with social complexity. Right-handed gestures were more strongly associated with goal-directed communication such as repair through elaboration in response to communication failure than left-hande

SUBMITTER: Roberts AI 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6698263 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature