Language Origins Viewed in Spontaneous and Interactive Vocal Rates of Human and Bonobo Infants

From the first months of life, human infants produce “protophones,” speech-like, non-cry sounds, presumed absent, or only minimally present in other apes. But there have been no direct quantitative comparisons to support this presumption. In addition, by 2 months, human infants show sustained face-to-face interaction using protophones, a pattern thought also absent or very limited in other apes, but again, without quantitative comparison. Such comparison should provide evidence relevant to determining foundations of language, since substantially flexible vocalization, the inclination to explore vocalization, and the ability to interact socially by means of vocalization are foundations for language. Here we quantitatively compare data on vocalization rates in three captive bonobo (Pan paniscus) mother–infant pairs with various sources of data from our laboratories on human infant vocalization. Both humans and bonobos produced distress sounds (cries/screams) and laughter. The bonobo infants also produced sounds that were neither screams nor laughs and that showed acoustic similarities to the human protophones. These protophone-like sounds confirm that bonobo infants share with humans the capacity to produce vocalizations that appear foundational for language. Still, there were dramatic differences between the species in both quantity and function of the protophone and protophone-like sounds. The bonobo protophone-like sounds were far less frequent than the human protophones, and the human protophones were far less likely to be interpreted as complaints and more likely as vocal play. Moreover, we found extensive vocal interaction between human infants and mothers, but no vocal interaction in the bonobo mother–infant pairs—while bonobo mothers were physically responsive to their infants, we observed no case of a bonobo mother vocalization directed to her infant. Our cross-species comparison focuses on low- and moderate-arousal circumstances because we reason the roots of language entail vocalization not triggered by excitement, for example, during fighting or intense play. Language appears to be founded in flexible vocalization, used to regulate comfortable social interaction, to share variable affective states at various levels of arousal, and to explore vocalization itself

Non-invasive methods of identifying and tracking wild squid

The ability to identify individual free-living animals in the field is an important method for studying their behavior. Apart from invasive external or internal tags, which may cause injury or abnormal behavior, most cephalopods cannot be tagged, as their skin is too soft and delicate for tag retention. Additionally, cephalopods remove many types of tags. However, body markings have been successfully used as a non invasive method to identify individuals of many different species of animals, including whale sharks, grey whales, seals, and zebras. We developed methods to sex and individually identify Caribbean reef squid, Sepiotheuthis sepioidea. Males showed distinct bright dots on their fins on a Basic Brown background and have a light line at the fin edge while the females had a gradual transition from Brown to Pale towards the edge of their fins without showing distinct fin-dots or lines. In the field we used four characters to distinguish individual S. sepioidea from each other – sex, relative size to each other, scars, and patterns of light-colored dots on their mantles and fins. These dot patterns are individually unique and constant in location through time. Observations in the field were backed up by an image database using illustrations and photography

Non-invasive methods of identifying and tracking wild squid

The ability to identify individual free-living animals in the field is an important method for studying their behavior. Apart from invasive external or internal tags, which may cause injury or abnormal behavior, most cephalopods cannot be tagged, as their skin is too soft and delicate for tag retention. Additionally, cephalopods remove many types of tags. However, body markings have been successfully used as a non invasive method to identify individuals of many different species of animals, including whale sharks, grey whales, seals, and zebras. We developed methods to sex and individually identify Caribbean reef squid, Sepiotheuthis sepioidea. Males showed distinct bright dots on their fins on a Basic Brown background and have a light line at the fin edge while the females had a gradual transition from Brown to Pale towards the edge of their fins without showing distinct fin-dots or lines. In the field we used four characters to distinguish individual S. sepioidea from each other – sex, relative size to each other, scars, and patterns of light-colored dots on their mantles and fins. These dot patterns are individually unique and constant in location through time. Observations in the field were backed up by an image database using illustrations and photography

Sex differences in infant vocalization and the origin of language

Seeking to discern the earliest sex differences in language-related activities, our focus is vocal activity in the first two years of life, following up on recent research that unexpectedly showed boys produced significantly more speech-like vocalizations (protophones) than girls during the first year of life.We now bring a much larger body of data to bear on the comparison of early sex differences in vocalization, data based on automated analysis of all-day recordings of infants in their homes. The new evidence, like that of the prior study, also suggests boys produce more protophones than girls in the first year and offers additional basis for informed speculation about biological reasons for these differences. More broadly, the work offers a basis for informed speculations about foundations of language that we propose to have evolved in our distant hominin ancestors, foundations also required in early vocal development of modern human infants

Language origins viewed in spontaneous and interactive vocal rates of human and bonobo infants

Funding: The research for this manuscript was funded by Grants R01 DC006099, DC011027, and DC015108 from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, by NSF BCS-1529127, by ERC-Synergy grant SOMICS 609819, by the James S. McDonnell Foundation, and by the Plough Foundation.From the first months of life, human infants produce “protophones,” speech-like, non-cry sounds, presumed absent, or only minimally present in other apes. But there have been no direct quantitative comparisons to support this presumption. In addition, by 2 months, human infants show sustained face-to-face interaction using protophones, a pattern thought also absent or very limited in other apes, but again, without quantitative comparison. Such comparison should provide evidence relevant to determining foundations of language, since substantially flexible vocalization, the inclination to explore vocalization, and the ability to interact socially by means of vocalization are foundations for language. Here we quantitatively compare data on vocalization rates in three captive bonobo (Pan paniscus) mother–infant pairs with various sources of data from our laboratories on human infant vocalization. Both humans and bonobos produced distress sounds (cries/screams) and laughter. The bonobo infants also produced sounds that were neither screams nor laughs and that showed acoustic similarities to the human protophones. These protophone-like sounds confirm that bonobo infants share with humans the capacity to produce vocalizations that appear foundational for language. Still, there were dramatic differences between the species in both quantity and function of the protophone and protophone-like sounds. The bonobo protophone-like sounds were far less frequent than the human protophones, and the human protophones were far less likely to be interpreted as complaints and more likely as vocal play. Moreover, we found extensive vocal interaction between human infants and mothers, but no vocal interaction in the bonobo mother–infant pairs—while bonobo mothers were physically responsive to their infants, we observed no case of a bonobo mother vocalization directed to her infant. Our cross-species comparison focuses on low- and moderate-arousal circumstances because we reason the roots of language entail vocalization not triggered by excitement, for example, during fighting or intense play. Language appears to be founded in flexible vocalization, used to regulate comfortable social interaction, to share variable affective states at various levels of arousal, and to explore vocalization itself.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Vocabulary Learning in a Yorkshire Terrier: Slow Mapping of Spoken Words

Rapid vocabulary learning in children has been attributed to “fast mapping”, with new words often claimed to be learned through a single presentation. As reported in 2004 in Science a border collie (Rico) not only learned to identify more than 200 words, but fast mapped the new words, remembering meanings after just one presentation. Our research tests the fast mapping interpretation of the Science paper based on Rico's results, while extending the demonstration of large vocabulary recognition to a lap dog. We tested a Yorkshire terrier (Bailey) with the same procedures as Rico, illustrating that Bailey accurately retrieved randomly selected toys from a set of 117 on voice command of the owner. Second we tested her retrieval based on two additional voices, one male, one female, with different accents that had never been involved in her training, again showing she was capable of recognition by voice command. Third, we did both exclusion-based training of new items (toys she had never seen before with names she had never heard before) embedded in a set of known items, with subsequent retention tests designed as in the Rico experiment. After Bailey succeeded on exclusion and retention tests, a crucial evaluation of true mapping tested items previously successfully retrieved in exclusion and retention, but now pitted against each other in a two-choice task. Bailey failed on the true mapping task repeatedly, illustrating that the claim of fast mapping in Rico had not been proven, because no true mapping task had ever been conducted with him. It appears that the task called retention in the Rico study only demonstrated success in retrieval by a process of extended exclusion