Towards a great ape dictionary: Inexperienced humans understand common nonhuman ape gestures.

ABSTRACT: In the comparative study of human and nonhuman communication, ape gesturing provided the first demonstrations of flexible, intentional communication outside human language. Rich repertoires of these gestures have been described in all ape species, bar one: us. Given that the majority of great ape gestural signals are shared, and their form appears biologically inherited, this creates a conundrum: Where did the ape gestures go in human communication? Here, we test human recognition and understanding of 10 of the most frequently used ape gestures. We crowdsourced data from 5,656 participants through an online game, which required them to select the meaning of chimpanzee and bonobo gestures in 20 videos. We show that humans may retain an understanding of ape gestural communication (either dir

SUBMITTER: Graham KE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9873169 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature