Document Type

Thesis

Date of Degree Completion

Spring 2014

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Primate Behavior

Committee Chair

Mary Lee Jensvold

Second Committee Member

Mark Auslander

Third Committee Member

Steven Wagner

Abstract

The most flexible form of communication may be gestures used by large body apes. The current study focused on gesture sequence in five captive orangutans at Woodland Park Zoo. We observed 305 gestures with 185 gestures (60.65%) occurring in 61 sequences in 2,482 minutes of data. Overall, orangutans used 272 tactile gestures (89 .18% ), 29 visual gestures (9 .50%) and 4 facial expressions ( 1.31 % ). In sequence, orangutans used 176 tactile gestures (95.14%), 7 visual gestures (3.78%), and 2 facial expressions (1.08%). Overall, a two-way repeated measure ANOV A showed significantly more tactile (x=26.9) than visual (x=2.9) gestures (F(l,4) = 45.90,p = 0.0002). There were significantly more gestures to attending (x=23.5) than non-attending (x= 6.3) partners (F(l,4) = 16.35,p = 0.015). These findings support other research that orangutans frequently use gesture sequences, make high use of tactile gestures, and use them appropriately to the attentional state of the partner.

Comments

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