Rough‐and‐tumble play as a window on animal communication
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Rough‐and‐tumble play ( RT ) is a widespread phenomenon in mammals. Since it involves competition, whereby one animal attempts to gain advantage over another, RT runs the risk of escalation to serious fighting. Competition is typically curtailed by some degree of cooperation and different signals help negotiate potential mishaps during RT . This review provides a framework for such signals, showing that they range along two dimensions: one from signals borrowed from other functional contexts to those that are unique to play, and the other from purely emotional expressions to highly cognitive (intentional) constructions. Some animal taxa have exaggerated the emotional and cognitive interplay aspects of play signals, yielding admixtures of communication that have led to complex forms of RT . This complexity has been further exaggerated in some lineages by the development of specific novel gestures that can be used to negotiate playful mood and entice reluctant partners. Play‐derived gestures may provide new mechanisms by which more sophisticated communication forms can evolve. Therefore, RT and playful communication provide a window into the study of social cognition, emotional regulation and the evolution of communication systems.
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Social play among juvenile peers facilitates the acquisition of social and cognitive competence in humans, non-human primates, and rats.
“Social play among juvenile peers has been shown to facilitate the acquisition of social and cognitive competence in humans, non-human primates, and rats (Palagi et al., 2016;Pellegrini, 1988;Suomi & Harlow, 1972;Sigman & Ruskin, 1999;Hol et al., 1999;Guralnick et al., 2006;Cordoni & Palagi, 2011;Van Den Berg et al., 1999).”
From Vasopressin regulates social play behavior in sex-specific ways through glutamate modulation in the lateral septum (2025) · cites this paper as Palagi et al., 2016
The indexed copy contains repository metadata and a PDF listing (Abstract > 1.1 Articolo in rivista), but no accessible passage from the paper addressing this claim. Searches for juvenile peer play and the acquisition of social or cognitive competence returned only repository-page text, so the claim cannot be checked against our copy. (LLM, conf=0.76)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe rat social repertoire includes a prolonged period of juvenile play that may provide a preclinical model system to explore social impairments in more detail than is possible with other rodent models.
“The rat social repertoire includes a prolonged period of juvenile play that may provide a preclinical model system to explore social impairments in more detail than is possible with other rodent models [13,14].”
From Behavioral Phenotyping of Juvenile Long-Evans and Sprague-Dawley Rats: Implications for Preclinical Models of Autism Spectrum Disorders (2016) · cites this paper as [14]
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References 178 · Cited by 209
- Authors
- Palagi, E., Burghardt, G. M., Smuts, B., Cordoni, G., Dall'Olio, S., Fouts, H. N., Řeháková‐Petrů, M., Siviy, S. M., & Pellis, S. M.
- Affiliations
- University of Pisa (IT)
- University of Tennessee System (US)
- University of Michigan (US)
- Tarsius o.s. Na Pěšině 267 Děčín 40505 Czech Republic
- Gettysburg College (US)
- University of Lethbridge (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Palagi, Elisabetta
- ORCID
- Venue
- Biological Reviews
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2015-01-25
- Volume
- 91
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 311-327
- ISSN
- 0006-3231 (ISSN-L)
- 1464-7931
- 1469-185X
- OpenAlex
- W1595269884
- Cited by
- 209
- References
- 178
- Citations by year
- 2026: 16 · 2025: 19 · 2024: 29 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 2.86
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- Locations
- Biological reviews/Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- The Cupola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College (Gettysburg College) (submittedVersion)
- CINECA IRIS Institutial research information system (University of Pisa) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Institutional Research Information System University of Turin (University of Turin) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Homeland Security
- U.S. Department of Agriculture (EF‐0832858, DBI‐1300426)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Developmental Biology › Animal Vocal Communication and Behavior
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Keywords
- rough-and-tumble play, animal communication, play signals, cooperation, social cognition, emotion regulation, evolution of communication, mammals
- MeSH terms
- Aggression, Animals, Animal Communication, Competitive Behavior, Humans, Play and Playthings, Social Behavior
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