Document Type

Thesis

Date of Degree Completion

Spring 2012

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science

Department

Primate Behavior

Committee Chair

Dr. Mary Lee A. Jensvold, Anthropology

Second Committee Member

Dr. Lori K. Sheeran, Anthropology

Third Committee Member

Dr. Audrey D. Huerta, Director Science Honors Research Program

Fourth Committee Member

Dr. Mathew C. Altman, Director, Douglas Honors College

Abstract

Both in the wild and in captivity, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) use gesture to communicate with each other. The three modalities of gesture that chimpanzees use are auditory, tactile, and visual. Captive chimpanzees use gesture modalities appropriately according to the communicative partner's attentional state. A communicative partner is the target of the communicator's actions. A partner may be either paying attention (attending) or not paying attention (inattentive) to the chimpanzee who is attempting to communicate with them. The present study investigated whether a free-living population of chimpanzees use gesture modality appropriately to the partner's attentional state. Visual gestures depend upon the attention of the partner to be effective, whereas auditory and tactile gestures do not. It was hypothesized that if the partner were inattentive, a chimpanzee would use an auditory or tactile gesture to communicate with that partner. In contrast, if the partner were attending, the communicating chimpanzee would use a visual gesture.

To test this, coders viewed 854 min of video of a free-living chimpanzee population in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, and recorded the modality of each gesture as well as the attentional state of the communicative partner. Inter-observer reliability overall, for 6564 total coded gestures, ranged from 85-93%. The analysis included 5452 gestures, of which 1.2% were auditory, 84.5% were tactile, and 14.3% were visual. Tactile gestures were used significantly more often than expected when the partner was inattentive, and significantly less often than expected when the partner was attending. Visual gestures were used significantly less often than expected when the partner was inattentive, and significantly more often than expected when the partner was attending. There was no significance for the usage of auditory gestures related to recipient attentional state. These results indicate that free-living chimpanzees adjust their communicative modality based on the attentional state of their partner, similar to captive chimpanzees.

Comments

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