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Cited by 55Primate Behavior and EcologyAnimal Vocal Communication and BehaviorLanguage and cultural evolution

Social bonding drives vocal exchanges in Bonobos

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Levréro, Florence, Touitou, Sonia, Frédet, Julia, Nairaud, Baptiste, Guéry, Jean-Pascal, Lemasson, Alban·2019·Scientific Reports
DOI 10.1038/s41598-018-36024-9PMC PMC6346008
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Abstract

The origin of human speech is still a hotly debated topic in science. Evidence of socially-guided acoustic flexibility and proto-conversational rules has been found in several monkey species, but is lacking in social and cooperative great apes. Here we investigated spontaneous vocal interactions within a peaceful context in captive bonobos to reveal that vocal interactions obey temporally and social rules. Dyadic vocal interactions were characterized by call overlap avoidance and short inter-call intervals. Bonobos preferentially responded to conspecifics with whom they maintained close bonds. We also found that vocal sharing rate (production rate of shared acoustic variants within each given dyad) was mostly explained by the age difference of callers, as other individual characteristics (sex, kinship) and social parameters (affinity in spatial proximity and in vocal interactions) were not. Our results show that great apes spontaneously display primitive conversation rules guided by social bonds. The demonstration that such coordinated vocal interactions are shared between monkeys, apes and humans fills a significant gap in our knowledge of vocal communication within the primate phylogeny and highlights the universal feature of social influence in vocal interactions.

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Authors
Levréro, F., Touitou, S., Frédet, J., Nairaud, B., Guéry, J.-P., & Lemasson, A.
Affiliations
  • Université Paris-Sud (FR)
  • Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
Corresponding author
Levréro, Florence
ORCID
Venue
Scientific Reports
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2019-01-24
Volume
9
Issue
1
Pages
711-711
ISSN
2045-2322 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1038/s41598-018-36024-9
PMC
PMC6346008
OpenAlex
W2911445258
Cited by
55
References
95
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 6 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 1
FWCI
9.11
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Scientific Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • HAL (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
  • Université de Lyon
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Developmental Biology › Animal Vocal Communication and Behavior
  • Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
Keywords
bonobos, vocal communication, social bonding, great apes
MeSH terms
Animals, Cooperative Behavior, Female, Male, Pair Bond, Sexual Behavior, Animal, Social Behavior, Vocalization, Animal, Pan paniscus

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