Chimpanzees gesture back and forth quickly like in human conversations

[Primum Sapienti]

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1051557

When people are having a conversation, they
rapidly take turns speaking and sometimes
even interrupt. Now, researchers who have
collected the largest ever dataset of
chimpanzee “conversations” have found that
they communicate back and forth using
gestures following the same rapid-fire
pattern. The findings are reported on
July 22 in the journal Current Biology.

“While human languages are incredibly
diverse, a hallmark we all share is that
our conversations are structured with
fast-paced turns of just 200 milliseconds
on average,” said Catherine Hobaiter
(@NakedPrimate) at the University of
St Andrews, UK.

“We found that the timing of chimpanzee
gesture and human conversational turn-taking
is similar and very fast, which suggests
that similar evolutionary mechanisms are
driving these social, communicative
interactions,” says Gal Badihi
(@Gal_Badihi), the study’s first author.
...

[Pandora]

Post by Primum Sapienti
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1051557
When people are having a conversation, they
rapidly take turns speaking and sometimes
even interrupt. Now, researchers who have
collected the largest ever dataset of
chimpanzee “conversations” have found that
they communicate back and forth using
gestures following the same rapid-fire
pattern. The findings are reported on
July 22 in the journal Current Biology.
“While human languages are incredibly
diverse, a hallmark we all share is that
our conversations are structured with
fast-paced turns of just 200 milliseconds
on average,” said Catherine Hobaiter
St Andrews, UK.
“We found that the timing of chimpanzee
gesture and human conversational turn-taking
is similar and very fast, which suggests
that similar evolutionary mechanisms are
driving these social, communicative
interactions,” says Gal Badihi
...

See also:

Chimpanzee utterances refute purported missing links for novel
vocalizations and syllabic speech

Abstract

Nonhuman great apes have been claimed to be unable to learn human words
due to a lack of the necessary neural circuitry. We recovered original
footage of two enculturated chimpanzees uttering the word “mama” and
subjected recordings to phonetic analysis. Our analyses demonstrate that
chimpanzees are capable of syllabic production, achieving
consonant-to-vowel phonetic contrasts via the simultaneous recruitment
and coupling of voice, jaw and lips. In an online experiment, human
listeners naive to the recordings’ origins reliably perceived chimpanzee
utterances as syllabic utterances, primarily as “ma-ma”, among foil
syllables. Our findings demonstrate that in the absence of direct
data-driven examination, great ape vocal production capacities have been
underestimated. Chimpanzees possess the neural building blocks necessary
for speech.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-67005-w

[Primum Sapienti]

Post by Pandora

Post by Primum Sapienti
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1051557

Chimpanzee utterances refute purported missing links for novel
vocalizations and syllabic speech
Abstract
Nonhuman great apes have been claimed to be unable to learn human words
due to a lack of the necessary neural circuitry. We recovered original
footage of two enculturated chimpanzees uttering the word “mama” and
subjected recordings to phonetic analysis. Our analyses demonstrate that
chimpanzees are capable of syllabic production, achieving
consonant-to-vowel phonetic contrasts via the simultaneous recruitment
and coupling of voice, jaw and lips. In an online experiment, human
listeners naive to the recordings’ origins reliably perceived chimpanzee
utterances as syllabic utterances, primarily as “ma-ma”, among foil
syllables. Our findings demonstrate that in the absence of direct
data-driven examination, great ape vocal production capacities have been
underestimated. Chimpanzees possess the neural building blocks necessary
for speech.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-67005-w

Hmmm. This seems to have just made the recent news.

Link has a video.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/25/science/chimpanzee-speech-mama.html

The Chimps Who Learned to Say ‘Mama’
Old recordings show captive chimps uttering
the word, which some scientists believe may
offer clues to the origins of human speech.

[JTEM]

Post by Primum Sapienti
The Chimps Who Learned to Say ‘Mama’
Old recordings show captive chimps uttering
the word, which some scientists believe may
offer clues to the origins of human speech.

Wrong thinking brings you wrong answers. Period.

Your language is literally constructing a model inside your
head, and that model is false.

We did not evolve from Chimps. So nothing about Chimps tells
us anything about our origins.

Chimps evolved from us.

The LCA was an upright walker who almost certainly used tools.

Supposedly, the oldest "Chimp" fossils are about half a million
years old. But they're only teeth and their identification as
Chimps is based entirely on similarity. It's not even about
environment, as it doesn't appear as though they were found in
what would have been your typical Chimp environment today.

Oo!

Even more important: If going by tooth appearance is so accurate
than Ardi or Lucy's kind were living in Europe at least 10 million
years ago.

Science is consistent, paleo anthropology never is.