Variable expression of linguistic laws in ape gesture: a case study from chimpanzee sexual solicitation
Two language laws have been identified as consistent patterns shaping animal behaviour, both acting on the organizational level of communicative systems. Zipf's law of brevity describes a negative relationship between behavioural length and frequency. Menzerath's law defines a negative cor...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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The Royal Society
2022-11-01
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| Series: | Royal Society Open Science |
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| Online Access: | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.220849 |
| _version_ | 1797845354963533824 |
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| author | Alexandra Safryghin Catharine Cross Brittany Fallon Raphaela Heesen Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho Catherine Hobaiter |
| author_facet | Alexandra Safryghin Catharine Cross Brittany Fallon Raphaela Heesen Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho Catherine Hobaiter |
| author_sort | Alexandra Safryghin |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Two language laws have been identified as consistent patterns shaping animal behaviour, both acting on the organizational level of communicative systems. Zipf's law of brevity describes a negative relationship between behavioural length and frequency. Menzerath's law defines a negative correlation between the number of behaviours in a sequence and average length of the behaviour composing it. Both laws have been linked with the information-theoretic principle of compression, which tends to minimize code length. We investigated their presence in a case study of male chimpanzee sexual solicitation gesture. We failed to find evidence supporting Zipf's law of brevity, but solicitation gestures followed Menzerath's law: longer sequences had shorter average gesture duration. Our results extend previous findings suggesting gesturing may be limited by individual energetic constraints. However, such patterns may only emerge in sufficiently large datasets. Chimpanzee gestural repertoires do not appear to manifest a consistent principle of compression previously described in many other close-range systems of communication. Importantly, the same signallers and signals were previously shown to adhere to these laws in subsets of the repertoire when used in play; highlighting that, in addition to selection on the signal repertoire, ape gestural expression appears shaped by factors in the immediate socio-ecological context. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-09T17:37:42Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-b913cb9d3e2148d88665b5185355b86d |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2054-5703 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-09T17:37:42Z |
| publishDate | 2022-11-01 |
| publisher | The Royal Society |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Royal Society Open Science |
| spelling | doaj.art-b913cb9d3e2148d88665b5185355b86d2023-04-17T10:54:42ZengThe Royal SocietyRoyal Society Open Science2054-57032022-11-0191110.1098/rsos.220849Variable expression of linguistic laws in ape gesture: a case study from chimpanzee sexual solicitationAlexandra Safryghin0Catharine Cross1Brittany Fallon2Raphaela Heesen3Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho4Catherine Hobaiter5School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, UKSchool of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, UKSchool of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, UKDepartment of Psychology, Durham University, Durham, UKComplexity and Quantitative Linguistics Laboratory, Laboratory for Relational Algorithmics, Complexity, and Learning Research Group, Departament de Ciències de la Computació, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, 08034 Barcelona, Catalonia, SpainSchool of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, UKTwo language laws have been identified as consistent patterns shaping animal behaviour, both acting on the organizational level of communicative systems. Zipf's law of brevity describes a negative relationship between behavioural length and frequency. Menzerath's law defines a negative correlation between the number of behaviours in a sequence and average length of the behaviour composing it. Both laws have been linked with the information-theoretic principle of compression, which tends to minimize code length. We investigated their presence in a case study of male chimpanzee sexual solicitation gesture. We failed to find evidence supporting Zipf's law of brevity, but solicitation gestures followed Menzerath's law: longer sequences had shorter average gesture duration. Our results extend previous findings suggesting gesturing may be limited by individual energetic constraints. However, such patterns may only emerge in sufficiently large datasets. Chimpanzee gestural repertoires do not appear to manifest a consistent principle of compression previously described in many other close-range systems of communication. Importantly, the same signallers and signals were previously shown to adhere to these laws in subsets of the repertoire when used in play; highlighting that, in addition to selection on the signal repertoire, ape gestural expression appears shaped by factors in the immediate socio-ecological context.https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.220849compressioncommunicationZipfMenzerathlanguage |
| spellingShingle | Alexandra Safryghin Catharine Cross Brittany Fallon Raphaela Heesen Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho Catherine Hobaiter Variable expression of linguistic laws in ape gesture: a case study from chimpanzee sexual solicitation Royal Society Open Science compression communication Zipf Menzerath language |
| title | Variable expression of linguistic laws in ape gesture: a case study from chimpanzee sexual solicitation |
| title_full | Variable expression of linguistic laws in ape gesture: a case study from chimpanzee sexual solicitation |
| title_fullStr | Variable expression of linguistic laws in ape gesture: a case study from chimpanzee sexual solicitation |
| title_full_unstemmed | Variable expression of linguistic laws in ape gesture: a case study from chimpanzee sexual solicitation |
| title_short | Variable expression of linguistic laws in ape gesture: a case study from chimpanzee sexual solicitation |
| title_sort | variable expression of linguistic laws in ape gesture a case study from chimpanzee sexual solicitation |
| topic | compression communication Zipf Menzerath language |
| url | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.220849 |
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