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Sclafani V, De Pascalis L, Bozicevic L, Sepe A, Ferrari PF, Murray L. Similarities and differences in the functional architecture of mother- infant communication in rhesus macaque and British mother-infant dyads. Sci Rep 2023; 13:13164. [PMID: 37574499 PMCID: PMC10423724 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-39623-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/09/2023] [Accepted: 07/27/2023] [Indexed: 08/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Similarly to humans, rhesus macaques engage in mother-infant face-to-face interactions. However, no previous studies have described the naturally occurring structure and development of mother-infant interactions in this population and used a comparative-developmental perspective to directly compare them to the ones reported in humans. Here, we investigate the development of infant communication, and maternal responsiveness in the two groups. We video-recorded mother-infant interactions in both groups in naturalistic settings and analysed them with the same micro-analytic coding scheme. Results show that infant social expressiveness and maternal responsiveness are similarly structured in humans and macaques. Both human and macaque mothers use specific mirroring responses to specific infant social behaviours (modified mirroring to communicative signals, enriched mirroring to affiliative gestures). However, important differences were identified in the development of infant social expressiveness, and in forms of maternal responsiveness, with vocal responses and marking behaviours being predominantly human. Results indicate a common functional architecture of mother-infant communication in humans and monkeys, and contribute to theories concerning the evolution of specific traits of human behaviour.
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Affiliation(s)
- V Sclafani
- Winnicott Research Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Reading, Reading, UK.
- College of Social Sciences, School of Psychology, University of Lincoln, Brayford Pool, Lincoln, LN6 7TS, UK.
| | - L De Pascalis
- Winnicott Research Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Reading, Reading, UK.
- Department of Psychology, Institute of Population Health, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.
- Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
| | - L Bozicevic
- Winnicott Research Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Reading, Reading, UK
- Department of Primary Care & Mental Health, Institute of Population Health, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, Merseyside, UK
| | - A Sepe
- Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
- Laboratory of Neuro- and Psychophysiology, Department of Neurosciences, KU Leuven Medical School, Leuven, Belgium
| | - P F Ferrari
- Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
- Institut des Sciences Cognitives 'Marc Jeannerod', CNRS, Bron, and Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Lyon, France
| | - L Murray
- Winnicott Research Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Reading, Reading, UK
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Articulatory effects on perceptions of men's status and attractiveness. Sci Rep 2023; 13:2647. [PMID: 36788286 PMCID: PMC9929068 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-29173-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/11/2022] [Accepted: 01/31/2023] [Indexed: 02/16/2023] Open
Abstract
Research on heterosexual mating has demonstrated that acoustic parameters (e.g., pitch) of men's voices influence their attractiveness to women and appearance of status and formidability to other men. However, little is known about how men's tendency to clearly articulate their speech influences these important social perceptions. In the current study, we used a repeated-measures design to investigate how men's articulatory clarity or conformity influenced women's (N = 45) evaluations of men's attractiveness for both short- and long-term relationships, and men's (N = 46) evaluations of physical formidability and prestige. Results largely supported our hypotheses: men who enunciated phonemes more distinctly were more attractive to women for long-term relationships than short-term relationships and were perceived by other men to have higher prestige than physical dominance. These findings suggest that aspects of articulatory behavior that influence perceptions of prestige and long-term mating attractiveness may indicate an early social history characterized by high socioeconomic status, likely owing to crystallization of articulatory patterns during the critical period of language development. These articulatory patterns may also be honest signals of condition or disposition owing to the nature of complex, multicomponent traits, which deserve further empirical attention.
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An Unusually Human Time: Effects of the Most Social Stage on the Most Social Species. EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-76000-7_6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022] Open
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Benítez-Burraco A, Ferretti F, Progovac L. Human Self-Domestication and the Evolution of Pragmatics. Cogn Sci 2021; 45:e12987. [PMID: 34170029 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12987] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/03/2020] [Revised: 04/25/2021] [Accepted: 04/26/2021] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Abstract
As proposed for the emergence of modern languages, we argue that modern uses of languages (pragmatics) also evolved gradually in our species under the effects of human self-domestication, with three key aspects involved in a complex feedback loop: (a) a reduction in reactive aggression, (b) the sophistication of language structure (with emerging grammars initially facilitating the transition from physical aggression to verbal aggression); and (c) the potentiation of pragmatic principles governing conversation, including, but not limited to, turn-taking and inferential abilities. Our core hypothesis is that the reduction in reactive aggression, one of the key factors in self-domestication processes, enabled us to fully exploit our cognitive and interactional potential as applied to linguistic exchanges, and ultimately to evolve a specific form of communication governed by persuasive reciprocity-a trait of human conversation characterized by both competition and cooperation. In turn, both early crude forms of language, well suited for verbal aggression/insult, and later more sophisticated forms of language, well suited for persuasive reciprocity, significantly contributed to the resolution and reduction of (physical) aggression, thus having a return effect on the self-domestication processes. Supporting evidence for our proposal, as well as grounds for further testing, comes mainly from the consideration of cognitive disorders, which typically simultaneously present abnormal features of self-domestication (including aggressive behavior) and problems with pragmatics and social functioning. While various approaches to language evolution typically reduce it to a single factor, our approach considers language evolution as a multifactorial process, with each player acting upon the other, engaging in an intense mutually reinforcing feedback loop. Moreover, we see language evolution as a gradual process, continuous with the pre-linguistic cognitive abilities, which were engaged in a positive feedback loop with linguistic innovations, and where gene-culture co-evolution and cultural niche construction were the main driving forces.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antonio Benítez-Burraco
- Department of Spanish, Linguistics and Theory of Literature (Linguistics), Faculty of Philology, University of Seville
| | - Francesco Ferretti
- Department of Philosophy, Communication and Performing Arts. Roma Tre University
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Progovac L, Benítez-Burraco A. From Physical Aggression to Verbal Behavior: Language Evolution and Self-Domestication Feedback Loop. Front Psychol 2019; 10:2807. [PMID: 31920850 PMCID: PMC6930236 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02807] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/12/2019] [Accepted: 11/28/2019] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
We propose that human self-domestication favored the emergence of a less aggressive phenotype in our species, more precisely phenotype prone to replace (reactive) physical aggression with verbal aggression. In turn, the (gradual) transition to verbal aggression and to more sophisticated forms of verbal behavior favored self-domestication, with the two processes engaged in a mutually reinforcing feedback loop, considering that verbal behavior entails not only less violence and better survival but also more opportunities to interact longer and socialize with more conspecifics, ultimately enabling the emergence of more complex forms of language. Whereas in the case of self-domestication, sexual selection has been proposed to work against physical aggression traits, in the case of verbal insult, the selection has been proposed to work in favor of verbal aggression. The tension between these two seemingly opposing forces gets resolved/alleviated by a tendency to replace physical aggression with verbal aggression and with verbal behavior more generally. This also helps solve the paradox of the Self-Domestication Hypothesis regarding aggression, more precisely why aggression in humans has been reduced only when it comes to reactive aggression, but not when it comes to proactive aggression, the latter exhibiting an increase in the advent of modern language. We postulate that this feedback loop was particularly important during the time period arguably between 200 and 50 kya, when humans were not fully modern, neither in terms of their skull/brain morphology and their behavior/culture nor in terms of their self-domestication. The novelty of our approach lies in (1) giving an active role to early forms of language in interacting with self-domestication processes; (2) providing specific linguistic details and functions of this early stage of grammar (including insult and humor); (3) supplying neurobiological, ontogenetic, and clinical evidence of a link between (reactive) aggression and (reactive) verbal behavior; (4) identifying proxies of the earlier stages in evolution among cognitive disorders; and (5) identifying specific points of contact and mutual reinforcement between these two processes (self-domestication and early language evolution), including reduction in physical aggression and stress/tension, as well as sexual selection.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ljiljana Progovac
- Linguistics Program, Department of English, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, United States
| | - Antonio Benítez-Burraco
- Department of Spanish Language, Linguistics and Literary Theory (Linguistics), Faculty of Philology, University of Seville, Seville, Spain
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Gustison ML, Bergman TJ. Vocal complexity influences female responses to gelada male calls. Sci Rep 2016; 6:19680. [PMID: 26790770 PMCID: PMC4726186 DOI: 10.1038/srep19680] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/05/2015] [Accepted: 11/27/2015] [Indexed: 01/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Extensive research indicates that inter-sexual selection drives the evolution of complex vocal communication in birds, but parallel lines of evidence are almost entirely absent in mammals. This dearth of evidence, particularly among primates, limits our understanding of the link between sociality and vocal complexity. Here, we use a playback experiment to quantify how wild female geladas (Theropithecus gelada) respond to three call types that are ‘derived’ (i.e., unique to geladas) and made by males during various affiliative contexts. These derived calls appeared to be highly salient and preferable to females: they looked longer towards and spent more time in proximity to playbacks of male vocal sequences containing one of the derived calls than to sequences containing only common and less elaborate ‘grunt’ calls. Our results provide the first experimental evidence for vocal elaboration as a male-specific strategy to maintain social bonds with females in non-human primates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Morgan L Gustison
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
| | - Thore J Bergman
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA.,Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, 830 North University, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
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Varvatsoulias G. Voice-Sensitive Areas in the Brain: A Single Participant Study Coupled With Brief Evolutionary Psychological Considerations. PSYCHOLOGICAL THOUGHT 2014. [DOI: 10.5964/psyct.v7i1.98] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
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McKeown GJ. The Analogical Peacock Hypothesis: The Sexual Selection of Mind-Reading and Relational Cognition in Human Communication. REVIEW OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 2013. [DOI: 10.1037/a0032631] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
This integrative review presents a novel hypothesis as a basis for integrating two evolutionary viewpoints on the origins of human cognition and communication, the sexual selection of human mental capacities, and the social brain hypothesis. This new account suggests that mind-reading social skills increased reproductive success and consequently became targets for sexual selection. The hypothesis proposes that human communication has three purposes: displaying mind-reading abilities, aligning and maintaining representational parity between individuals to enable displays, and the exchange of propositional information. Intelligence, creativity, language, and humor are mental fitness indicators that signal an individual's quality to potential mates, rivals, and allies. Five features central to the proposed display mechanism unify these indicators, the relational combination of concepts, large conceptual knowledge networks, processing speed, contextualization, and receiver knowledge. Sufficient between-mind alignment of conceptual networks allows displays based upon within-mind conceptual mappings. Creative displays communicate previously unnoticed relational connections and novel conceptual combinations demonstrating an ability to read a receiver's mind. Displays are costly signals of mate quality with costs incurred in the developmental production of the neural apparatus required to engage in complex displays and opportunity costs incurred through time spent acquiring cultural knowledge. Displays that are fast, novel, spontaneous, contextual, topical, and relevant are hard-to-fake for lower quality individuals. Successful displays result in elevated social status and increased mating options. The review addresses literatures on costly signaling, sexual selection, mental fitness indicators, and the social brain hypothesis; drawing implications for nonverbal and verbal communication.
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Sidtis D, Kreiman J. In the beginning was the familiar voice: personally familiar voices in the evolutionary and contemporary biology of communication. Integr Psychol Behav Sci 2012; 46:146-59. [PMID: 21710374 PMCID: PMC3224673 DOI: 10.1007/s12124-011-9177-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/22/2011] [Accepted: 06/15/2011] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
Abstract
The human voice is described in dialogic linguistics as an embodiment of self in a social context, contributing to expression, perception and mutual exchange of self, consciousness, inner life, and personhood. While these approaches are subjective and arise from phenomenological perspectives, scientific facts about personal vocal identity, and its role in biological development, support these views. It is our purpose to review studies of the biology of personal vocal identity-the familiar voice pattern-as providing an empirical foundation for the view that the human voice is an embodiment of self in the social context. Recent developments in the biology and evolution of communication are concordant with these notions, revealing that familiar voice recognition (also known as vocal identity recognition or individual vocal recognition) has contributed to survival in the earliest vocalizing species. Contemporary ethology documents the crucial role of familiar voices across animal species in signaling and perceiving internal states and personal identities. Neuropsychological studies of voice reveal multimodal cerebral associations arising across brain structures involved in memory, emotion, attention, and arousal in vocal perception and production, such that the voice represents the whole person. Although its roots are in evolutionary biology, human competence for processing layered social and personal meanings in the voice, as well as personal identity in a large repertory of familiar voice patterns, has achieved an immense sophistication.
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Affiliation(s)
- Diana Sidtis
- Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, New York University, New York, NY 10012, USA.
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