Download or read book Natural Behavior and the Neurobiology of Primate Communication written by Vladimir Jovanovic and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our primate Order is known for the expansion of the neocortex relative to other mammals. This distinction is coupled with a characteristic complex society that is facilitated by dynamic social cognitive mechanisms and systems of communication. Because of this intricate relationship, investigating the neural basis of communication within primates affords the opportunity to better understand how different dimensions of sociality are supported by the structures of the brain itself. Much of the research on the neuroscience of communication in primates has hinged on studies of vocalization processing in head-restrained monkeys either passively listening to stimuli or engaged in a conditional behavioral task. But the information communicated by social signals are heavily influenced by the natural contexts they occur in, and auditory processing of vocalizations within the brain may likewise be heavily affected by the context in which conspecific vocalizations are heard; thus, the experiments may not fully capture the neural basis of communication. I hypothesize that the traditional experimental contexts typical of nonhuman primate neuroscience research has divorced the signal from its natural context, and, consequently, limited our understanding of how various neocortical structures support these processes. Here I sought to address this critical gap in our knowledge by implementing novel experimental paradigms designed to explicate the neurobiology and behavior of natural communication in freely-moving marmoset monkeys (Callithrix jacchus). In this dissertation, I detail the results of new insights gained from the innovative experiments that support my hypothesis. Chapter 1 shows how broad 'states' of neural populations in frontal cortex during natural, untrained behavior of antiphonal conversations in the marmoset predicts whether subjects respond to a conspecific call. Chapter 2 shows robust within-neuron differences in how prefrontal cortex neurons respond to vocalizations between traditional head-restrained contexts and natural behavior suggesting that data recorded in the former context is not predictive of the latter. Finally, Chapter 3 shows my novel multi-speaker paradigm that simulates the natural communication networks in marmosets (i.e. "Cocktail Party") to study the vocal processing of marmosets in complex acoustic environments previously inaccessible to researchers for any other animal model. Results demonstrate that marmosets employ similar perceptual mechanisms as humans to communicate in these dynamic acoustic and social landscapes. These findings establish a novel paradigm in which to explore the neurobiology of primate communication in dynamic, multi-speaker communication networks that more closely resemble their natural communication systems.
Download or read book Neurobiology of Social Communication In Primates written by Horest Steklis and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2012-12-02 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Neurobiology of Social Communication in Primates: An Evolutionary Perspective presents evidence on the neural basis of communicative behavior in primates, reevaluating the relationship between human language and animal communication in view of the linguistic abilities of chimpanzees. This book consists of 10 chapters. Chapter 1 discusses some of the persistent problems in evolutionary neurobiology of primate communication. The effects of brain lesions and stimulation on vocalization in New and Old World monkeys, relation between species differences in peripheral vocal structures and species contrasts in vocal performance, and anatomy and physiology of the nonhuman primate auditory system are reviewed in Chapters 2 to 4. Chapters 5 to 7 examine the effects of electrical brain stimulation on human verbal communication and facial expression, clinical data pertaining to language pathologies, and neural mechanisms of manual and oral control. The last three chapters summarize the materials presented in earlier chapters. This publication is recommended for neuroscientists, behavioral biologists, neurologists, psychiatrists, and students interested in the evolutionary heritage of human speech and language.
Download or read book The Evolution of Social Communication in Primates written by Marco Pina and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-05-23 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did social communication evolve in primates? In this volume, primatologists, linguists, anthropologists, cognitive scientists and philosophers of science systematically analyze how their specific disciplines demarcate the research questions and methodologies involved in the study of the evolutionary origins of social communication in primates in general and in humans in particular. In the first part of the book, historians and philosophers of science address how the epistemological frameworks associated with primate communication and language evolution studies have changed over time and how these conceptual changes affect our current studies on the subject matter. In the second part, scholars provide cutting-edge insights into the various means through which primates communicate socially in both natural and experimental settings. They examine the behavioral building blocks by which primates communicate and they analyze what the cognitive requirements are for displaying communicative acts. Chapters highlight cross-fostering and language experiments with primates, primate mother-infant communication, the display of emotions and expressions, manual gestures and vocal signals, joint attention, intentionality and theory of mind. The primary focus of the third part is on how these various types of communicative behavior possibly evolved and how they can be understood as evolutionary precursors to human language. Leading scholars analyze how both manual and vocal gestures gave way to mimetic and imitational protolanguage and how the latter possibly transitioned into human language. In the final part, we turn to the hominin lineage, and anthropologists, archeologists and linguists investigate what the necessary neurocognitive, anatomical and behavioral features are in order for human language to evolve and how language differs from other forms of primate communication.
Download or read book Primate Psychology written by Dario Maestripieri and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 632 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In more ways than we may sometimes care to acknowledge, the human being is just another primate--it is certainly only very rarely that researchers into cognition, emotion, personality, and behavior in our species and in other primates come together to compare notes and share insights. This book, one of the few comprehensive attempts at integrating behavioral research into human and nonhuman primates, does precisely that--and in doing so, offers a clear, in-depth look at the mutually enlightening work being done in psychology and primatology. Relying on theories of behavior derived from psychology rather than ecology or biological anthropology, the authors, internationally known experts in primatology and psychology, focus primarily on social processes in areas including aggression, conflict resolution, sexuality, attachment, parenting, social development and affiliation, cognitive development, social cognition, personality, emotions, vocal and nonvocal communication, cognitive neuroscience, and psychopathology. They show nonhuman primates to be far more complex, cognitively and emotionally, than was once supposed, with provocative implications for our understanding of supposedly unique human characteristics. Arguing that both human and nonhuman primates are distinctive for their wide range of context-sensitive behaviors, their work makes a powerful case for the future integration of human and primate behavioral research.
Download or read book Primate Communication and Human Language written by Anne Vilain and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After a long period where it has been conceived as iconoclastic and almost forbidden, the question of language origins is now at the centre of a rich debate, confronting acute proposals and original theories. Most importantly, the debate is nourished by a large set of experimental data from disciplines surrounding language. The editors of the present book have gathered researchers from various fields, with the common objective of taking as seriously as possible the search for "continuities" from non-human primate vocal and gestural communication systems to human speech and language, in a multidisciplinary perspective combining ethology, neuroscience, developmental psychology and linguistics, as well as computer science and robotics. New data and theoretical elaborations on the emergence of referential communication and language are debated here by some of the most creative scientists in the world.
Download or read book Primate Hearing and Communication written by Rolf M. Quam and published by Humana Press. This book was released on 2017-09-04 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a comprehensive review of nonhuman primate audition and vocal communication. These are obviously intimately related topics, but are often addressed separately. The hearing abilities of primates have been tested experimentally in a large number of species across the primate order, and these studies have revealed both consistent patterns as well as interesting variation within and between taxonomic groups. Recent studies have shed light on how variation in anatomical structures along the auditory pathway relates to variation in auditory sensitivity. At the same time, ongoing studies of vocal communication in wild primate populations continue to reveal new insights into the social and environmental contexts of many primate calls, and the range of known primate vocalizations has increased dramatically with the development of more sophisticated and accessible auditory equipment and software that enables the recording and analysis of higher-fidelity and broader-band recordings, including documenting very high frequency (i.e. ultrasound) vocalizations. Historically the relative importance of primate calls has been evaluated qualitatively by the perception of the researcher, but new methods and approaches now enable a greater appreciation for how signals are used and perceived by the primates in question. The integration of anatomical and behavioral data on acoustic communication and the environmental correlates thereof has significant potential for reconstructing behavior in the fossil record. This confluence of factors and accumulating evidence for the sophistication and complexity in both the signal and its interpretation indicate that a book synthesizing this information across primates is warranted and represents an important contribution to the literature.
Download or read book The Primate Mind written by F. B. M. de Waal and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-02 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "'Monkey see, monkey do' may sound simple, but how an individual perceives and processes the behavior of another is one of the most complex and fascinating questions related to the social life of humans and other primates. In The Primate Mind, experts from around the world take a bottom-up approach to primate social behavior by investigating how the primate mind connects with other minds and exploring the shared neurological basis for imitation, joint action, cooperative behavior, and empathy. In the past, there has been a tendency to ask all-or-nothing questions, such as whether primates possess a theory of mind, have self-awareness, or have culture. A bottom-up approach asks, rather, what are the underlying cognitive processes of such capacities, some of which may be rather basic and widespread. Prominent neuroscientists, psychologists, ethologists, and primatologists use methods ranging from developmental psychology to neurophysiology and neuroimaging to explore these evolutionary foundations. A good example is mirror neurons, first discovered in monkeys but also assumed to be present in humans, that enable a fusing between one's own motor system and the perceived actions of others. This allows individuals to read body language and respond to the emotions of others, interpret their actions and intentions, synchronize and coordinate activities, anticipate the behavior of others, and learn from them. The remarkable social sophistication of primates rests on these basic processes, which are extensively discussed in the pages of this volume."--The dust-jacket front flap.
Download or read book Primate Neuroethology written by Asif A. Ghazanfar and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2012-08-16 with total page 706 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume is the first of its kind to bridge the epistemological gap between primate ethologists and primate neurobiologists. Leading experts in several fields review work ranging from primate foraging behavior to the neurophysiology of motor control, from vocal communication to the functions of the auditory cortex.
Download or read book Current Topics in Primate Vocal Communication written by U. Jürgens and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-29 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than 25 years ago, the first major review of primate communication appeared (Altmann, 1967). Since then, information on the communicative abilities of primates increased rapidly, resulting, 15 years later, in the appearance of the first volume in which signaling systems were analyzed in a broader variety of primate groups within an evolutionary perspective (Snowdon, Brown and Petersen, 1982). Seven years later, the first volume dedicated solely to primate vocal communication appeared (Todt, Goedeking and Symmes, 1988) and another four years later a volume followed in which nonverbal vocal communication in non-human primates and human infants was compared (Papousek, Jurgens and Papousek, 1992). None of these volumes, however, provided information about current technical advances in the field of bioacoustics, especially in digital sound analyzing systems, which offer primatologists, anthropologists and linguists nowadays a variety of rapid methods for analyzing human speech and non-human primate vocalizations in a quantitative and comparative way. Choosing the right method is difficult if a synopsis of these tools is lacking. Furthermore, information was particularly lacking on the natural signaling systems of two important primate groups, the prosimians and the apes. Likewise, new and unexpected insights into the ontogeny and evolution of vocal communication were gained during the past few years by the use of highly sophisticated sound analysis and statistical techniques.
Download or read book Primate Audition written by Asif A. Ghazanfar and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2002-08-28 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like speech, the species-specific vocalizations or calls of non-human primates mediate social interactions, convey important emotional information, and in some cases refer to objects and events in the caller's environment. These functional similarities suggest that the selective pressures which shaped primate vocal communication are similar to those that influenced the evolution of human speech. As such, investigating the perception and production of vocalizations in extant non-human primates provides one avenue for understanding the neural mechanisms of speech and for illuminating the substrates underlying the evolution of human language. Primate Audition: Ethology and Neurobiology is the first book to bridge the epistemological gap between primate ethologists and auditory neurobiologists. It brings together the knowledge of world experts on different aspects of primate auditory function. Leading ethologists, comparative psychologists, and neuroscientists who have developed new experimental approaches apply their methods to a variety of issues dealing with primate vocal behavior and the neurobiology of the primate auditory system. With the advent of new signal processing techniques and the exponential growth in our knowledge of primate behavior, the time has arrived for a neurobiological investigation of the primate auditory system based on principles derived from ethology. The synthesis of ethological and neurobiological approaches to primate vocal behavior presented in Primate Audition: Ethology and Neurobiology is likely to yield the richest understanding of the acoustic and neural bases of primate audition and possibly shed light on the evolutionary precursors to speech.
Download or read book Social Behavior and Communication written by Peter Marler and published by Springer. This book was released on 1979-11 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Other books in this series focus on behavior at the individual level, approached from the viewpoints of biochemistry, anatomy, physiology, and psychology. In this volume we show how the functioning nervous systems of interacting individuals are coordinated, with the ultimate creation of complex social structures. The intri cacies of an individual's nervous system have been subject to intense inquiry, and research at the chemical, cellular, and organ levels has made remarkable progress. Work at the social level has been conducted somewhat independently, by way of behavioral phenomena and communicative interactions. With the emergence of a large body of information from neurobiology, the beginnings of an integrated approach are possible. New data on social functions are presented in the chapters to follow, and the forward-looking reader may wish to reflect on how they clarify understanding of interactions between two or more independent nervous systems. The outcome is harmonious social structure and improvement in the inclusive fitness of group-living individuals. We believe that there is in prospect a new way of looking at social function that will ultimately increase our understanding of the highest and most complex levels of neurobiology. The modern approach to the study of social behavior involves more than the recording of interactions between animals. Each individual brings to the process of social interaction the implications of its prior genetic and experiential history.
Download or read book Gestural Communication in Nonhuman and Human Primates written by Katja Liebal and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2007-11-21 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research into gestures represents a multifaceted field comprising a wide range of disciplines and research topics, varying methods and approaches, and even different species such as humans, apes and monkeys. The aim of this volume (originally published as a Special Issue of Gesture 5:1/2 (2005)) is to bring together the research in gestural communication in both nonhuman and human primates and to explore the potential of a comparative approach and its contribution to the question of an evolutionary scenario in which gestures play a significant role. The topics covered include the spontaneous natural gesture use in social groups of apes and monkeys, but also during interactions with humans, gestures of preverbal children and their interaction with language, speech-accompanying gestures in humans as well as the use of sign-language in human and nonhuman great apes. It addresses researchers with a background in Psychology, Primatology, Linguistics, and Anthropology, but it might also function as an introduction and a documentation state of the art for a wider less specialised audience which is fascinated by the role gestures might have played in the evolution of human language.
Download or read book Sensory Systems of Primates written by Charles Noback and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Primates are avid explorers that utilize a variety of sensory clues from the environment. The special senses of olfaction, audition, and particu larly vision are thus of paramount significance in the evolution and adaptive radiation of the primates. It was with this in mind that this volume was planned to present some recent research advances. The chapter on olfactory communication among primates affords new insights concerning a sense which, though primatologists have generally relegated it to a minor role, is of considerable significance in the primates. The chapters on the auditory system are organized to stress three aspects: the receptive organ, the neural pathways, and the role of audition in primate communication. The visual system, the dominant special sense of primates, is analyzed with respect to two regions of the brain, namely, the organization of the superior colliculus and the visual cortex. Finally, the chapter on endocasts in the study of primate brain evolution will alert neurobiologists to the relevant information that can be unearthed from fossils embedded in the terrane. I wish to thank the publishers, and especially Miss Phyllis Straw and Mr. Seymour Weingarten, for their support, patience, guidance, and professional assistance.
Download or read book Primate Vocal Communication written by Dietmar Todt and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Communication is both a prerequisite and manifestation of social organization and in this sense several chapters of this volume are aimed to investigate the way vocal communication serves its ultimate function of maintaining social organization. Although manifold parallels exist to vocal communication in birds, additional mechanisms of vocalization are found in primates. Treating the various psychological, ecological, behavioral, and neurobiological aspects of vocalization this book provides an interdisciplinary approach for the understanding of biocommunication in primates including humans. Conceptual as well as methodological considerations are given in a balanced way. The addition of a comprehensive glossary gives an overview also to nonspecialists in this field.
Download or read book Primate Behavior and the Emergence of Human Culture written by Jane Beckman Lancaster and published by Holt McDougal. This book was released on 1975 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The purpose of this book is to present an introduction to the understanding of man and human behavior as the products of a long, evolutionary history."--Page ix.
Download or read book Psychological Mechanisms in Animal Communication written by Mark A. Bee and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-01-26 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyzes the psychological mechanisms critical to animal communication. The topics covered range from single neurons to broad-scale phylogenetic patterns, shedding new light on the sensory, perceptual, and cognitive processes that underlie the communicative behaviors of signalers and receivers alike. In so doing, the contributing authors collectively integrate research questions and methods from behavioral ecology, cognitive ethology, comparative psychology, evolutionary biology, sensory ecology, and neuroscience. No less broad is the volume’s taxonomic coverage, which spans bees to blackbirds to baboons. The ultimate goal of the book is to stimulate additional research into the diversity and evolution of the psychological mechanisms that make animal communication possible.
Download or read book Primate Vocal Communication written by Dietmar Todt and published by Springer. This book was released on 1988-09-30 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Communication is both a prerequisite and manifestation of social organization and in this sense several chapters of this volume are aimed to investigate the way vocal communication serves its ultimate function of maintaining social organization. Although manifold parallels exist to vocal communication in birds, additional mechanisms of vocalization are found in primates. Treating the various psychological, ecological, behavioral, and neurobiological aspects of vocalization this book provides an interdisciplinary approach for the understanding of biocommunication in primates including humans. Conceptual as well as methodological considerations are given in a balanced way. The addition of a comprehensive glossary gives an overview also to nonspecialists in this field.
