Variable Expression of Linguistic Laws in Ape Gesture: A Case Study from Chimpanzee Sexual Solicitation

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dc.contributor.authorSafryghin, Alexandra
dc.contributor.authorCross, Catharine
dc.contributor.authorFallon, Brittany
dc.contributor.authorHeesen, Raphaela
dc.contributor.authorFerrer-i-Cancho, Ramon
dc.contributor.authorHobaiter, Catherine
dc.date.accessioned2023-06-27T21:00:31Z
dc.date.available2023-06-27T21:00:31Z
dc.date.issued2022
dc.description.abstractTwo language laws have been identified as consistent patterns shaping animal behaviour, both acting on the organizational level of communicative systems. Zipf's law of brevity describes a negative relationship between behavioural length and frequency. Menzerath's law defines a negative correlation between the number of behaviours in a sequence and average length of the behaviour composing it. Both laws have been linked with the information-theoretic principle of compression, which tends to minimize code length. We investigated their presence in a case study of male chimpanzee sexual solicitation gesture. We failed to find evidence supporting Zipf's law of brevity, but solicitation gestures followed Menzerath's law: longer sequences had shorter average gesture duration. Our results extend previous findings suggesting gesturing may be limited by individual energetic constraints. However, such patterns may only emerge in sufficiently large datasets. Chimpanzee gestural repertoires do not appear to manifest a consistent principle of compression previously described in many other close-range systems of communication. Importantly, the same signallers and signals were previously shown to adhere to these laws in subsets of the repertoire when used in play; highlighting that, in addition to selection on the signal repertoire, ape gestural expression appears shaped by factors in the immediate socio-ecological context.en_US
dc.identifier.citationSafryghin, A., Cross, C., Fallon, B., Heesen, R., Ferrer-i-Cancho, R., & Hobaiter, C. (2022). Variable expression of linguistic laws in ape gesture: a case study from chimpanzee sexual solicitation. Royal Society open science, 9(11), 220849.https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.220849en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://nru.uncst.go.ug/handle/123456789/9002
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherRoyal Society open scienceen_US
dc.subjectApeen_US
dc.subjectSexual solicitationen_US
dc.subjectCompressionen_US
dc.titleVariable Expression of Linguistic Laws in Ape Gesture: A Case Study from Chimpanzee Sexual Solicitationen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US
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