Wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) distinguish between different scream types: evidence from a playback study
Wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) distinguish between different scream types: evidence from a playback study
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野生黑猩猩（Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii）区分不同的尖叫类型：来自回放研究的证据
作者：
K. Slocombe;S. Townsend;K. Zuberbühler
当受到群体成员的攻击时，黑猩猩通常会发出尖叫声。这些争斗性的尖叫是分级的信号，并且根据呼叫者所面临的攻击的严重程度而在声学上变化。我们在乌干达布东戈森林的野生黑猩猩社区进行了一系列现场回放实验，以确定个体是否能有意义地区分不同争斗背景下的尖叫声。我们比较了6名受试者对严重和轻度攻击的尖叫声的反应。受试者始终区分这两种尖叫类型。为了解决反应差异直接由尖叫声的周边声学特征驱动的可能性，而不是任何附加的社会意义，我们还测试了受试者对发脾气尖叫的反应。这些尖叫声是由经历了社会挫折的个体发出的，但没有身体威胁，但在听觉上，它们与严重攻击受害者的尖叫声非常相似。我们发现，黑猩猩对严重受害者尖叫的反应时间比轻微受害者尖叫或发脾气的尖叫都要长。我们的研究结果表明，黑猩猩出席的尖叫声的信息内容，并能够区分不同的尖叫声的变体，这形成了一个分级连续体的一部分。
When experiencing aggression from group members, chimpanzees commonly produce screams. These agonistic screams are graded signals and vary acoustically as a function of the severity of aggression the caller is facing. We conducted a series of field playback experiments with a community of wild chimpanzees in the Budongo Forest, Uganda, to determine whether individuals could meaningfully distinguish between screams given in different agonistic contexts. We compared six subjects’ responses to screams given in response to severe and mild aggression. Subjects consistently discriminated between the two scream types. To address the possibility that the response differences were driven directly by the screams’ peripheral acoustic features, rather than any attached social meaning, we also tested the subjects’ responses to tantrum screams. These screams are given by individuals that experienced social frustration, but no physical threat, yet acoustically they are very similar to screams of victims of severe aggression. We found chimpanzees looked longer at severe victim screams than either mild victim screams or tantrum screams. Our results indicate that chimpanzees attend to the informational content of screams and are able to distinguish between different scream variants, which form part of a graded continuum.