Category: Anthropology

Categories
Anthropology Cognition Research Wildlife

Gestures & communication: chimpanzees have a point

How chimpanzees communicate
How chimpanzees communicate

Imagine deciphering the first form of intentional communication to be recorded in the animal kingdom, such as how chimpanzees communicate.

That’s exactly what Dr. Catherine Hobaiter has done after years of following wild chimpanzees in the Budongo Forest of Uganda, Africa.

She studies the evolution, acquisition and flexibility of communication and social behaviour, in particular through long-term field studies of wild chimpanzees.

For the past seven years, Cat has been working as a primatologist at a forest research-station in Uganda to better understand chimpanzee communication and behavior.

She hopes to to advance our understanding of great ape communication, and in addition, by looking at areas of overlap or species specific traits, she hopes to also gain an understanding of the evolutionary origins of language.

In this episode, we learn from Cat about her exciting observations of a communication system where animals don’t just share information through behaviour, but deliberately send messages of meaning to each other.

Listen in, and you’ll find out exactly how how chimpanzees communicate.

Podcast

How chimpanzees communicate

How chimpanzees communicate
How chimpanzees communicate

Publications

Dr. Catherine Hobaiter - Studying how chimpanzees communicate
Dr. Catherine Hobaiter – Studying how chimpanzees communicate

Hobaiter, C., & Byrne, R. W. (2011). The gestural repertoire of the wild chimpanzee. Animal cognition, 14(5), 745-767. [PDF]

Hobaiter, C., & Byrne, R. W. (2011). Serial gesturing by wild chimpanzees: its nature and function for communication. Animal cognition, 14(6), 827-838.

Hobaiter, C. L., & Byrne, R. W. (2012). Gesture use in consortship: wild chimpanzees’ use of gesture for an ‘evolutionarily urgent’purpose. Developments in Primate Gesture Research. [PDF]

Hobaiter, C., & Byrne, R. W. (2013). Laterality in the gestural communication of wild chimpanzees. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1288(1), 9-16. [PDF]

Hobaiter, C., & Byrne, R. W. (2014). The meanings of chimpanzee gestures. Current Biology, 24(14), 1596-1600. [PDF]

Links

University of St Andrews Profile: Cat Hobaiter

Follow Cat Hobaiter on Twitter: @NakedPrimate

Budongo Conservation Field Station

School of Psychology & Neuroscience at St Andrews University in Scotland

All images and media by Catherine Hobaiter, used with permission.

Categories
Anthropology Pets Psychology Research

Anthropomorphism: are we guilty?

anthropomorphism in dogs
anthropomorphism in dogs

Are we guilty of anthropomorphism in dogs? As dog owners it’s very easy to humanise our pets.

Julie Hecht, MSc, is a researcher and science writer fascinated not just by animal behaviour and welfare, but how we think about animals and the consequences of those thoughts.

Take anthropomorphism (attributing human characteristics to animals or objects) as a key example.

In this episode of Human Animal Science we explore what actually happens when we think that dog is guilty; or that cat is grumpy.

We discuss why we anthropomorphise and how it impacts on the animals.

Podcast

What is anthropomorphism in dogs?

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics to non-human entities.

In dogs, it can manifest as attributing emotions such as love, loyalty, and happiness to dogs, or expecting dogs to understand and communicate with us in ways that they do not. At least not in the same ways we do.

Do dogs know the difference between humans and dogs?

Dogs are intelligent creatures who are capable of complex social interaction, which means they’re able to pick up on our cues and learn from us.

However, studies show dogs actually see us as a member of their pack, not a separate species.

This means dogs do not necessarily know the difference between humans and dogs, but are capable of forming attachments to both.

Links

Dog Spies: www.dogspies.com  |  Dog Spies Blog on Scientific American

Horowitz Dog Cognition Lab (Barnard College, Columbia University, New York)

The Bark magazine

Do You Believe in Dog?

Publications

Hecht, Miklosi, & Gacsi (2012) Behavioral assessment and owner perceptions of behaviors associated with guilt in dogs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 139. 134-142.

Do dogs feel guilty? Jason Goldman | Scientific American

Hecht & Horowitz (2012) Physical prompts to anthropomorphism of the domestic dog (Canis familiaris) Third Canine Science Forum, Barcelona, Spain. Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research, 8, e30.

Horowitz (2009) Disambiguating the “guilty look”: Salient prompts to a familiar dog behavior. Behavioural Processes, 81, 447-452.

Horowitz (2007) Naturalizing anthropomorphism: Behavioral prompts to our humanizing of animals. Anthrozoös, 20, 23-35.

Image credit: Flickr/Brainware3000

Categories
Anthropology

Disaster survival: animals and their people

Disaster survival animals and people
Disaster survival animals and people

Dr Kirrilly Thompson, Research Fellow in Cultural Anthropology at CQ University in Adelaide, Australia, is a cultural anthropologist with varied research experience and interests.

In this episode of Human Animal Science, we get an overview of her ground breaking research into the effect of the human-animal bond in relation to natural disaster preparedness and survival.

Podcast

Links

Animals and Disasters Project Summary (PDF)

Thompson K. (2013) Save me, same my dog: Increasing natural disaster preparedness and survival by addressing human-animal relationships. Australian Journal of Communication. 40(1): 123-36.

Image credit: Flickr/Christaface

Koala and fire fighter from the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, Australia
(*language warning*)