Have you ever observed a group of chimpanzees communicating with each other? It is fascinating discover that these animals not only use gestures to communicate, but they do so at rhythms surprisingly similar to those of human conversations. A recent study published in the journal Current Biology revealed incredible details about how these primates interact.
Chimpanzees: A Surprising Parallel
These animals communicate with each other by gesticulating in turn, with timing similar to that of humans. This study, the largest of its kind, analyzed more than 250 specimens, collecting data on more than 8,500 gestures. Researchers at the University of Saint Andrew in Scotland they discovered that the 14% of interactions between chimpanzee includes an exchange of gestures between two individuals. These exchanges occur with an average latency of only 120 milliseconds, very similar to the 200 milliseconds typical of human conversations.
“Although human languages are incredibly diverse, one characteristic that we all have in common is that our conversations I am structured with frenetic rhythms and a latency between the call and response of only 200 milliseconds on average,” explains Catherine Hobaiter, coordinator of the study. This discovery lift one request intriguing: This rhythmic structure is uniquely human or do we share this aspect with other animals?
To answer this requestscholars have monitored five chimpanzee communities in East Africa. They have discovered that the interactions Communication between chimpanzees shows similar rhythms to human conversations, suggesting that these social and communicative interactions are driven by similar evolutionary mechanisms. Gal Badihi, first author of the study, underlines such as “the timing of gestures in chimpanzees and turn-taking in conversations human are similar and very fast”.
Cultural variations
Another aspect interesting is the variation in the timing of responses between different Anthropoid communities, a phenomenon which reflects human cultural variations. For example, some human cultures speak faster than others, and this same occurs among chimpanzee communities. “In humans, they are the Danish to respond more slowly,” he specifies Hobaiter“while in chimpanzees, it is the Sonso community in Uganda”.
This research not only broadens our understanding of chimpanzees’ communication abilities, but invites us to reflect on evolutionary roots of our own capacity social. The next once you see one chimpanzee communicate, think about How much we are similar and how much we can learn by observing them.
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