Chimpanzees talking to each other isn’t exactly new. But what researchers have discovered is that this communication occurs at a frequency similar to our human conversations.
The study was published in the academic journal Current BiologyHe showed that although these primates communicate through gestures rather than words, they engage in rapid, alternating communicative exchanges, with rapid response oscillations from one gesture to the next..
These primates use gestures such as hand movements and facial expressions to communicate in a highly structured way. But they do so in a way that takes seconds between the response time from one gesture to the next, which is about as fast as human communication.
“On average, there are 120 milliseconds between the end of one gesture and the beginning of the next. In humans, the average is about 200 milliseconds, so it's very close.” new worldGal Badihi, a researcher at the University of St Andrews in the United Kingdom, and one of the study's authors.
The research team observed and recorded the behavior of five chimpanzee communities in the forests of Uganda and Tanzania, documenting more than 8,000 gestures from more than 252 individuals. According to the researchers, these gestures were used to coordinate between the group and avoid conflicts between them.
“So one chimp can signal to another that they want food, and the other can offer them food, or if they feel less generous, respond by gesturing for them to leave. They can come to an agreement about how or where to take care of themselves. It’s a pretty cool thing to do and it’s done with a little exchange of gestures,” Badihi explains.
But of course, not all chimpanzee groups analyzed communicated at the same frequency. For example, chimpanzees from the Sonso community in Uganda took slightly longer to respond to gestures than those from other communities.
But according to Kat Hobaiter, a researcher at the University of St Andrews and also one of the study's authors, this frequency variation is common even in human societies.
“We all took about 200 milliseconds between turns and showed some interesting little cultural differences. Some cultures speak fast,” he explains in an interview with BBC News.
For example, a 2009 study showed that Japanese speakers respond on average within seven milliseconds, while Danish speakers take about 470 milliseconds to enter the conversation.
The findings suggest that processes associated with human communication may have evolved much earlier than previously thought, and may share common roots with other primate species.
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