Titi monkeys combine alarm calls to create probabilistic meaning

Mélissa Berthet; Geoffrey Mesbahi; Aude Pajot; Cristiane Cäsar; Christof Neumann; Klaus Zuberbuhler

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aav3991

Titi monkeys combine alarm calls to create probabilistic meaning

Mélissa Berthet^*, Geoffrey Mesbahi, Aude Pajot, Cristiane Cäsar, Christof Neumann, Klaus Zuberbuhler

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

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.

Original language	English
Article number	eaav3991
Number of pages	10
Journal	Science Advances
Volume	5
Issue number	5
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aav3991
Publication status	Published - 15 May 2019

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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). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, 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.
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Cite this

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title = "Titi monkeys combine alarm calls to create probabilistic meaning",

abstract = "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.",

author = "M{\'e}lissa Berthet and Geoffrey Mesbahi and Aude Pajot and Cristiane C{\"a}sar and Christof Neumann and Klaus Zuberbuhler",

note = "Funding: Our research was funded by the European Research Council under the European Union{\textquoteright}s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013)/ERC grant agreement no. 283871. We acknowledge further funding from the European Union{\textquoteright}s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement No. 324115–FRONTSEM (PI: Schlenker) and the Institut d{\textquoteright}Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Sup{\'e}rieure, PSL Research University (grants ANR-10-LABX-0087 IEC and ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 PSL), from the Swiss National Science Foundation, and from the University of Neuch{\^a}tel. The research leading to the data from 2008 to 2010 received funding from the CAPES-Brazil, FAPEMIG-Brazil, S.B. Leakey Trust, and the University of St Andrews.",

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AU - Berthet, Mélissa

AU - Mesbahi, Geoffrey

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AU - Cäsar, Cristiane

AU - Neumann, Christof

AU - Zuberbuhler, Klaus

N1 - Funding: Our research was funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013)/ERC grant agreement no. 283871. We acknowledge further funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement No. 324115–FRONTSEM (PI: Schlenker) and the Institut d’Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, PSL Research University (grants ANR-10-LABX-0087 IEC and ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 PSL), from the Swiss National Science Foundation, and from the University of Neuchâtel. The research leading to the data from 2008 to 2010 received funding from the CAPES-Brazil, FAPEMIG-Brazil, S.B. Leakey Trust, and the University of St Andrews.

PY - 2019/5/15

Y1 - 2019/5/15

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

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Titi monkeys combine alarm calls to create probabilistic meaning

Abstract

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Klaus Zuberbuehler

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Statistical script and datasets

Audio recordings of predator presentations

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Titi monkeys combine alarm calls to create probabilistic meaning

Abstract

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Profiles

Klaus Zuberbuehler

Datasets

Videos of playbacks

Statistical script and datasets

Audio recordings of predator presentations

Cite this