Chimpanzee mothers, but not fathers, influence offspring vocal–visual communicative behavior

TL;DR

Chimpanzee mothers influence their offspring's communication style, suggesting social learning rather than genetic inheritance.

Contribution

The study demonstrates that maternal influence, not genetics, shapes multi-modal communication in wild chimpanzees.

Findings

Chimpanzee offspring show similarity in vocal-visual communication with their mothers.

Paternal relatives do not share similar communication patterns.

Communication behavior appears to be socially learned rather than genetically inherited.

Abstract

Face-to-face communication in humans typically consists of a combination of vocal utterances and body language. Similarly, our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, produce multiple vocal signals alongside a wide array of manual gestures, body postures and facial expressions. In humans, the ontogenetic development of communicative behavior is known to be heavily influenced by the child’s primary caretakers. In chimpanzees, the extent to which communicative behavior is learned, as opposed to genetically inherited, remains openly debated. Here, we address this issue within the context of multi-modal communication by investigating kinship patterns in the production of visual behaviors alongside vocal signals in wild chimpanzees from the Kanyawara community, Uganda. We report a similarity in the number of visual behaviors combined with vocal signals between individuals who are related via their mother, while no similarity is observed between paternal relatives, in line with the observation that chimpanzee mothers constitute the primary caretakers, while fathers are not involved in parenting. We conclude that the development of this aspect of multi-modal communicative behavior is unlikely to be genetically driven and is rather a result of learning via exposure to social templates, akin to processes involved in the acquisition of human communication.

The influence of social versus genetic factors on communication in non-human hominids is not well understood. This study shows that, in line with their central caretaking role, chimpanzees exhibit presumed social influences on communication behavior from their mothers, but not fathers.

Figures