Details to follow.

Organised by: Marta Wesierska

Email for teams link: marta.wesierska@warwick.ac.uk

I'd like to invite you to the next Language and Learning seminar which will take place next Wednesday, on the 2^nd of March, at 12-1 on Microsoft Teams (link below).

Joseph Mine from the Department of Comparative Language Science, University of Zurich will be giving a talk titled Vocal signals facilitate cooperative hunting by wild chimpanzees (abstract below).

Best wishes, Marta

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Link to the meeting:

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_MjZkZjU5YTgtMzg4Ni00NzYxLWI0MmMtODgyMTVmNDUxMzY5%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2209bacfbd-47ef-4465-9265-3546f2eaf6bc%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%224a86ac30-2d44-4475-aafa-8354221f0e05%22%7d

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Abstract:

Cooperation and communication likely co-evolved in humans. However, the evolutionary roots of this interdependence remain unclear. We address this issue by investigating the role of vocal signals in facilitating a complex group cooperative behavior in an ape species: hunting in wild chimpanzees. First, we show that bark vocalizations produced before hunt initiation are reliable signals of behavioral motivation, with barkers being most likely to subsequently hunt. Next, we find that barks are associated with greater hunter recruitment and more effective hunting in terms of shorter latencies to hunting initiation and prey capture. Our results indicate that the co-evolutionary relationship between vocal communication and group-level cooperation is not unique to humans, and is likely to have been present in our last common ancestor with chimpanzees.

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Schedule of talks for next term: