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Titi monkeys combine alarm calls to create probabilistic meaning
Previous work suggested that titi monkeys Callicebus nigrifrons combine two alarm calls, the A- and B-calls, to communicate about predator type and location. To explore how listeners process these sequences, we recorded alarm call sequences of six free-ranging groups exposed to terrestrial and aeria...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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American Association for the Advancement of Science
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6527438/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31123704 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aav3991 |
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author | Berthet, Mélissa Mesbahi, Geoffrey Pajot, Aude Cäsar, Cristiane Neumann, Christof Zuberbühler, Klaus |
author_facet | Berthet, Mélissa Mesbahi, Geoffrey Pajot, Aude Cäsar, Cristiane Neumann, Christof Zuberbühler, Klaus |
author_sort | Berthet, Mélissa |
collection | PubMed |
description | Previous work suggested that titi monkeys Callicebus nigrifrons combine two alarm calls, the A- and B-calls, to communicate about predator type and location. To explore how listeners process these sequences, we recorded alarm call sequences of six free-ranging groups exposed to terrestrial and aerial predator models, placed on the ground or in the canopy, and used multimodel inference to assess the information encoded in the sequences. We then carried out playback experiments to identify the features used by listeners to react to the available information. Results indicated that information about predator type and location were encoded by the proportion of B-call pairs relative to all call pairs of the sequence (i.e., proportion of BB-grams). The results suggest that the meaning of the sequence is not conveyed in a categorical but probabilistic manner. We discuss the implications of these findings for current theories of animal communication and language evolution. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6527438 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-65274382019-05-23 Titi monkeys combine alarm calls to create probabilistic meaning Berthet, Mélissa Mesbahi, Geoffrey Pajot, Aude Cäsar, Cristiane Neumann, Christof Zuberbühler, Klaus Sci Adv Research Articles Previous work suggested that titi monkeys Callicebus nigrifrons combine two alarm calls, the A- and B-calls, to communicate about predator type and location. To explore how listeners process these sequences, we recorded alarm call sequences of six free-ranging groups exposed to terrestrial and aerial predator models, placed on the ground or in the canopy, and used multimodel inference to assess the information encoded in the sequences. We then carried out playback experiments to identify the features used by listeners to react to the available information. Results indicated that information about predator type and location were encoded by the proportion of B-call pairs relative to all call pairs of the sequence (i.e., proportion of BB-grams). The results suggest that the meaning of the sequence is not conveyed in a categorical but probabilistic manner. We discuss the implications of these findings for current theories of animal communication and language evolution. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2019-05-15 /pmc/articles/PMC6527438/ /pubmed/31123704 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aav3991 Text en Copyright © 2019 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) , which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Articles Berthet, Mélissa Mesbahi, Geoffrey Pajot, Aude Cäsar, Cristiane Neumann, Christof Zuberbühler, Klaus Titi monkeys combine alarm calls to create probabilistic meaning |
title | Titi monkeys combine alarm calls to create probabilistic meaning |
title_full | Titi monkeys combine alarm calls to create probabilistic meaning |
title_fullStr | Titi monkeys combine alarm calls to create probabilistic meaning |
title_full_unstemmed | Titi monkeys combine alarm calls to create probabilistic meaning |
title_short | Titi monkeys combine alarm calls to create probabilistic meaning |
title_sort | titi monkeys combine alarm calls to create probabilistic meaning |
topic | Research Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6527438/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31123704 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aav3991 |
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