The face never lies: facial expressions and mimicry modulate playful interactions in wild geladas

Nuancing 'Emotional' Social Play: Does Play Behaviour Always Underlie a Positive Emotional State?

This review focuses on social play, a complex behaviour that is often difficult to categorize. Although play has been typically associated with positive emotional states, a thorough examination of the literature indicates that it may relate to different emotional systems, from attachment to conflict. Play oscillates between competition and cooperation, and includes a spectrum in between; thus, quantitatively identifying and demonstrating the emotional nature of play remains challenging. We considered examples from human and non-human animal studies and explored the emotional and neuro-hormonal systems involved in play. We assessed ethological data possibly indicating the emotional states underlying play, and we focused on the cooperative and competitive elements of play. We investigated the relationship between play and affiliative/aggressive behaviours, the communicative meaning of play signals (especially primate play faces), and the motor and possibly emotional contagion function of rapid motor mimicry during play. From all the literature on play, this review selects and combines studies in an innovative way to present the methods (e.g., play indices and social network analysis), tools (e.g., sequential analysis and facial coding software), and evidence indicative of the emotional states underlying play, which is much more complex than previously thought.

Rapid facial mimicry in Platyrrhini: Play face replication in spider monkeys (Ateles fusciceps, Ateles hybridus, and Ateles paniscus)

Rapid facial mimicry (RFM), the rapid and automatic replication of facial expression perceived, is considered a basic form of empathy and was investigated mainly during play. RFM occurs in Catarrhini (Old World primates), but it is not still demonstrated in Platyrrhini (New World primates). For this reason, we collected video data on playful interactions (Nplay_interactions = 149) in three species of spider monkeys (Ateles fusciceps-N = 11, Ateles hybridus-N = 14, and Ateles paniscus-N = 6) housed at La Vallée des Singes and the ZooParc de Beauval (France). For the first time, we demonstrated the occurrence of RFM in Platyrrhini (analyzing 175 events). Players' sex, age, species, relationship quality, and kinship did not modulate RFM probably due to the species' complex fission-fusion dynamics and flexible interindividual social relationships. Compared to the absence of any playful expressions or the presence of only not replicated play face, RFM prolonged the session duration and was sequentially associated with more types of more intense offensive playful patterns (patterns aimed at attacking/pursuing the playmate). We proposed that RFM may favor synchronization and context sharing between players, thus decreasing the risk of behavior misinterpretation while simultaneously fostering a more competitive nature of play. In conclusion, this study stimulates additional research on the evolutionary origins of motor mimicry in primates, possibly dating back to before the divergence of New and Old World monkeys. Furthermore, it also points toward the possibility that RFM may not always lead to cooperation but also to competition, depending on the context and species' social and cognitive features.

Feline faces: Unraveling the social function of domestic cat facial signals

Lately, there has been a growing interest in studying domestic cat facial signals, but most of this research has centered on signals produced during human-cat interactions or pain. The available research on intraspecific facial signaling with domesticated cats has largely focused on non-affiliative social interactions. However, the transition to intraspecific sociality through domestication could have resulted in a greater reliance on affiliative facial signals that aid with social bonding. Our study aimed to document the various facial signals that cats produce during affiliative and non-affiliative intraspecific interactions. Given the close relationship between the physical form and social function of mammalian facial signals, we predicted that affiliative and non-affiliative facial signals would have noticeable differences in their physical morphology. We observed the behavior of 53 adult domestic shorthair cats at CatCafé Lounge in Los Angeles, CA. Using Facial Action Coding Systems designed for cats, we compared the complexity and compositionality of facial signals produced in affiliative and non-affiliative contexts. To measure complexity and compositionality, we examined the number and types of facial muscle movements (AUs) observed in each signal. We found that compositionality, rather than complexity, was significantly associated with the social function of intraspecific facial signals. Our findings indicate that domestication likely had a significant impact on the development of intraspecific facial signaling repertoires in cats.

The shape of lipsmacking: socio-emotional regulation in bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus)

Capuchin monkeys have rich social relationships and from very young ages they participate in complex interactions with members of their group. Lipsmacking behaviour, which involves at least two individuals in socially mediated interactions, may tell about processes that maintain, accentuate or attenuate emotional exchanges in monkeys. Lipsmacking is a facial expression associated with the establishment and maintenance of affiliative interactions, following under the 'emotional regulation' umbrella, which accounts for the ability to manage behavioural responses. We investigated behaviours related to the emitter and to the receiver (infant) of lipsmacking to answer the question of how lipsmacking occurs. In capuchin monkeys, lipsmacking has been previously understood solely as a face-to-face interaction. Our data show that emitters are engaged with infants, looking longer towards their face and seeking eye contact during the display. However, receivers spend most of the time looking away from the emitter and stay in no contact for nearly half of the time. From naturalistic observations of wild infant capuchin monkeys from Brazil we found that lipsmacking is not restricted to mutual gaze, meaning there are other mechanisms in place than previously known. Our results open paths to new insights about the evolution of socio-emotional displays in primates.

Laughter, play faces and mimicry in animals: evolution and social functions

Human laughter and laugh faces show similarities in morphology and function with animal playful expressions. To better understand primordial uses and effects of human laughter and laugh faces, it is important to examine these positive expressions in animals from both homologous and analogous systems. Phylogenetic research on hominids provided empirical evidence on shared ancestry across these emotional expressions, including human laughter and laugh faces. In addition, playful expressions of animals, in general, arguably have a key role in the development of social cognitive skills, a role that may help explain their polyphyletic history. The present work examines the evolution and function of playful expressions in primates and other animals. As part of this effort, we also coded for muscle activations of six carnivore taxa with regard to their open-mouth faces of play; our findings provide evidence that these carnivore expressions are homologues of primate open-mouth faces of play. Furthermore, our work discusses how the expressions of animal play may communicate positive emotions to conspecifics and how the motor resonance of these expressions increases affiliation and bonding between the subjects, resembling in a number of ways the important social-emotional effects that laughter and laugh faces have in humans. This article is part of the theme issue 'Cracking the laugh code: laughter through the lens of biology, psychology and neuroscience'.

A convergent interaction engine: vocal communication among marmoset monkeys

To understand the primate origins of the human interaction engine, it is worthwhile to focus not only on great apes but also on callitrichid monkeys (marmosets and tamarins). Like humans, but unlike great apes, callitrichids are cooperative breeders, and thus habitually engage in coordinated joint actions, for instance when an infant is handed over from one group member to another. We first explore the hypothesis that these habitual cooperative interactions, the marmoset interactional ethology, are supported by the same key elements as found in the human interaction engine: mutual gaze (during joint action), turn-taking, volubility, as well as group-wide prosociality and trust. Marmosets show clear evidence of these features. We next examine the prediction that, if such an interaction engine can indeed give rise to more flexible communication, callitrichids may also possess elaborate communicative skills. A review of marmoset vocal communication confirms unusual abilities in these small primates: high volubility and large vocal repertoires, vocal learning and babbling in immatures, and voluntary usage and control. We end by discussing how the adoption of cooperative breeding during human evolution may have catalysed language evolution by adding these convergent consequences to the great ape-like cognitive system of our hominin ancestors. This article is part of the theme issue 'Revisiting the human 'interaction engine': comparative approaches to social action coordination'.