Chimpanzee communication bears striking resemblance to human conversations

A study found that communication between chimpanzees bears more similarity to communication between humans than previously known. Just like us, chimpanzees also “talk” by taking turns speaking and gesturing to aid communication. The research was published on July 22 in the scientific journal Current Biology.

“Although human languages ​​are incredibly diverse, one characteristic we all share is that our conversations are structured with rapid engagements, lasting just 200 milliseconds on average,” explained Catherine Hobaiter of the University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom. “But it was an open question whether this was uniquely human or whether other animals shared this structure.”

The findings indicate that this is not the case, and that the evolution of species also influences our social interactions.

“We found that the time between chimpanzee gestures and human conversations is similar and very fast, which suggests that similar evolutionary mechanisms are driving these social and communicative interactions,” explained Gal Badihi, lead author of the study.

Equal communication standards around the world

Researchers already knew that humans follow a similar pattern of communicating through conversation across the world, regardless of place or culture. And they decided to collect data on chimpanzee communication in five wild communities in East Africa to see if the pattern would be repeated among the animals.

Data were collected on more than 8,500 gestures from 252 chimpanzees, measuring the time taken to alternate conversational turns and exchanges of gestures between two individuals. Around 14% of interactions included an exchange of gestures. Overall, the data reveals a timing similar to that of human conversation, with short pauses between a gesture and a gestural response at around 120 milliseconds.

“Cultural differences” among chimpanzees

Although the monkeys studied communicate with each other, some communities do so in different ways than others.

“We observed a small variation between different chimpanzee communities, which again corresponds to what we see in people where there are small cultural variations in the pace of conversation: some cultures have slower or faster speakers,” Badihi added.

“They seem to share both our universal time and subtle cultural differences,” said Hobaiter. “In humans, it is the Danes that respond most slowly, and in eastern chimpanzees, it is the Sonso community in Uganda.”

The next step is to understand what are chimpanzees talking about and for what purpose. Researchers believe that the gestures used by animals serve to ask each other questions.

“We still don’t know when these conversational structures evolved, or why,” Hobaiter said. “To get to this question, we need to explore communication in more distantly related species, so we can figure out whether these are characteristics of monkeys or whether they are characteristics we share with other highly social species, like elephants or crows.”

Chimpanzees apply ‘medicine’ to each other in a possible show of empathy