A new study has claimed that chimpanzees hold conversations with each other, akin to humans but using gestures instead of rapid-fire speech. The research sheds light on behaviour patterns humans and primates share due to evolution.
The team of researchers examined video evidence of 252 wild East African chimpanzees interacting with one another and peered through more than 8,500 instances of gestures made by them.
After going through the data, the researchers saw not only similar patterns of human communication within the chimps but also differences in communication between their cultures.
“We found that the timing of chimpanzee gesture and human conversational turn-taking is similar and very fast, which suggests that similar evolutionary mechanisms are driving these social, communicative interactions,” said lead author Gal Badihi from the University of St Andrews in the United Kingdom.
The study published in Current Biology noted that 14 per cent of all interactions involved the exchange of gestures between the chimps. The majority of the gestural interactions (83 per cent) involved a two-part exchange of gesture for gesture.
Notably, the researchers have already identified 58 different versions of the ‘let’s play’ gestures chimpanzees use in the wild.
Akin to humans, the response timing in chimps was similar but depending on cultures, some articulated their gestures fast, while others didn’t.
“We did see a little variation among different chimp communities, which again matches what we see in people where there are slight cultural variations in conversation pace: some cultures have slower or faster talkers,” Badihi added.
The study effectively suggests that the way humans communicate may have originated millions of years ago in our evolutionary history before we parted ways with chimps – our closest living relatives.
Previous studies
A previous study claimed that chimpanzees show each other objects just for the sake of it to garner attention – a trait similarly seen in humans.
The study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences cited the example of an adult chimpanzee named ‘Fiona’ who could be seen picking a leaf, examining it and later shoving it under her mother Sutherland’s nose momentarily, before snatching it back.
The behaviour, previously thought to be unique to humans, has intrigued scientists who believe that chimpanzees might be much closer to humans than we had earlier thought.
(With inputs from agencies)