4.6 Review

A convergent interaction engine: vocal communication among marmoset monkeys

Publisher

ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0098

Keywords

convergence; cooperative breeding; mutual gaze; turn-taking; babbling; intentional control over vocalizations

Categories

Ask authors/readers for more resources

This article explores the primate origins of the human interaction engine, focusing on both great apes and callitrichid monkeys. The authors suggest that callitrichids' habitual cooperative interactions share key elements with the human interaction engine, and these monkeys also possess elaborate communicative skills. The article also discusses the potential impact of cooperative breeding on language evolution in humans.
To understand the primate origins of the human interaction engine, it is worthwhile to focus not only on great apes but also on callitrichid monkeys (marmosets and tamarins). Like humans, but unlike great apes, callitrichids are cooperative breeders, and thus habitually engage in coordinated joint actions, for instance when an infant is handed over from one group member to another. We first explore the hypothesis that these habitual cooperative interactions, the marmoset interactional ethology, are supported by the same key elements as found in the human interaction engine: mutual gaze (during joint action), turn-taking, volubility, as well as group-wide prosociality and trust. Marmosets show clear evidence of these features. We next examine the prediction that, if such an interaction engine can indeed give rise to more flexible communication, callitrichids may also possess elaborate communicative skills. A review of marmoset vocal communication confirms unusual abilities in these small primates: high volubility and large vocal repertoires, vocal learning and babbling in immatures, and voluntary usage and control. We end by discussing how the adoption of cooperative breeding during human evolution may have catalysed language evolution by adding these convergent consequences to the great ape-like cognitive system of our hominin ancestors.This article is part of the theme issue 'Revisiting the human 'interaction engine': comparative approaches to social action coordination'.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.6
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available