Communication and Behavior of Baboons

摘要：本研究的目的是为了更好地了解散居非人灵长类动物的声音交流和社会行为。由于各种原因，重点将放在声音交流上：首先，因为它与人类语言和认知研究的潜在关系；第二，因为发声有助于定量信号分析和特定假设的实验测试。最后，先前的研究表明，回放实验不仅可以用来测试关于声音交流本身的假设，还可以用来测试复杂社会互动背后的认知机制。研究对象是生活在博茨瓦纳奥卡万戈三角洲的自由放养狒狒（Papio cynocephalus ursinus）。研究种群中的动物完全习惯了人类观察者，被视为个体，并且有已知的生殖史。该提案有五个相互关联的组成部分。该提案的第一部分侧重于在和解中使用发声。在攻击之后，雌性狒狒有时会通过对地位较低的对手发出咕噜声来“和解”。先前的实验表明，这些咕噜声至少在一定程度上起到了减轻前受害者焦虑的作用。第二个部分侧重于咕噜声的声学结构和可能的语义内容。狒狒在不同的社交场合会发出不同的咕噜声。pi计划进行一系列的观察和实验，以确定不同的声音类型是否对狒狒具有特定的不同信息。第三个组成部分侧重于接触吠叫，这似乎是母亲和婴儿在树林中分开时交换的吠叫。如果这些实验表明，母亲发出接触吠叫主要是对自己（而不是婴儿）的位置表示尊重，那么它们将为越来越多的证据表明，非人类灵长类动物的吠叫不是为了向其他动物提供信息。第四个组成部分侧重于这样一种观点，即配偶关系的形成是对新近移民的雄性杀婴威胁的回应。然而，这些实验是不完整的，很大程度上是因为它们必须在一个可能杀婴的新雄性加入群体后的几周内进行。研究的第四个目标是完成这些实验。最后一部分着重于非人类灵长类动物对因果关系的感知。人类很容易区分两个同时发生的事件，因为其中一个事件引起了另一个事件，而两个事件纯粹是由于联系而同时发生的。迄今为止进行的大多数研究表明，猴子在操纵工具时不会运用因果推理，尽管受过语言训练的猿在类似的实验中表现得明显更好。然而，先前对这群狒狒进行的实验表明，猴子在社会互动领域感知因果关系的能力可能相当发达。雌性狒狒对播放有异常原因的声音序列的反应明显比播放没有异常原因的声音序列的反应强烈。为了进一步研究这个问题，提出了一系列实验，对受试者对特定呼叫序列的反应强度和时间做出明确的预测。＊＊＊

Abstract 9514001 Cheney The goal of this research is a better understanding of the vocal communication and social behavior of freeranging nonhuman primates. Focus will be on vocal communication for a variety of reasons: first, because of its potential relation to studies of language and cognition in humans; second, because vocalizations lend themselves to quantitative signal analysis and to experimental tests of specific hypotheses. Finally, prior research has shown that playback experiments can be used to test hypotheses not only about vocal communication per se but also about the cognitive mechanisms that underlie complex social interactions. Subjects are free-ranging baboons (Papio cynocephalus ursinus) living in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. Animals in the study population are fully habituated to human observers, are recognized as individuals, and have known reproductive histories. The proposal has five inter-related components. The first component of this proposal focuses on the use of vocalizations in reconciliation. After aggression, female baboons sometimes 'reconcile' by grunting to their lower-ranking opponents. Previous experiments have shown that these grunts function at least in part to reduce former victims' anxiety. A second component focuses on the acoustic structure and possible semantic content of grunts. Baboons appear to use acoustically different grunts in different social situations. The PIs plan a series of observations and experiments are planned to determine whether acoustically different grunt types designate specifically different information to baboons. A third component focuses on contact barks that appear to be exchanged between mothers and infants when they become separated in wooded areas. If these experiments indicate that mothers give contact barks primarily with respect to their own (rather than their infants') location, then they will add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that nonhuman primates do not call with the intent of providing inform ation to others. A fourth component focuses on the view that pair bonds are formed in response to the threat of infanticide by recent immigrant males. These experiments, however, are incomplete, largely because they must be conducted opportunistically during the weeks after a new, potentially infanticidal male has joined the group. A fourth goal of the research will be to complete these experiments. The final component focuses on the perception of cause-effect relations by nonhuman primates. Humans readily distinguish between two events that occur together because one caused the other and two events that occur together purely by association. Most research conducted to date suggests that monkeys do not apply causal reasoning when manipulating tools, though language-trained apes perform markedly better on similar experiments. Previous experiments conducted with this group of baboons, however, suggest that monkeys' ability to perceive cause-effect relations in the domain of social interactions may be quite well developed. Female baboons respond significantly more strongly to playbacks of vocal sequences that are causally anomalous than to those that are not. To investigate this question further, a series of experiments is proposed that make explicit predictions about both the strength and the timing of subjects' responses to particular call sequences. ***