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Vocal turn-taking in a non-human primate is learned during ontogeny.

ABSTRACT: Conversational turn-taking is an integral part of language development, as it reflects a confluence of social factors that mitigate communication. Humans coordinate the timing of speech based on the behaviour of another speaker, a behaviour that is learned during infancy. While adults in several primate species engage in vocal turn-taking, the degree to which similar learning processes underlie its development in these non-human species or are unique to language is not clear. We recorded the natural vocal interactions of common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) occurring with both their sibling twins and parents over the first year of life and observed at least two parallels with language development. First, marmoset turn-taking is a learned vocal behaviour. Second, marmoset parents potentially played a direct role in guiding the development of turn-taking by providing feedback to their offspring when errors occurred during vocal interactions similarly to what has been observed in humans. Though species-differences are also evident, these findings suggest that similar learning mechanisms may be implemented in the ontogeny of vocal turn-taking across our Order, a finding that has important implications for our understanding of language evolution.

SUBMITTER: Chow CP

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4424641 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Vocal turn-taking in a non-human primate is learned during ontogeny.

Chow Cecilia P CP Mitchell Jude F JF Miller Cory T CT

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20150501 1807

Conversational turn-taking is an integral part of language development, as it reflects a confluence of social factors that mitigate communication. Humans coordinate the timing of speech based on the behaviour of another speaker, a behaviour that is learned during infancy. While adults in several primate species engage in vocal turn-taking, the degree to which similar learning processes underlie its development in these non-human species or are unique to language is not clear. We recorded the nat ...[more]

PMID: 25904663

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Project description:ObjectivesThe primary objective of the study was to examine the occurrence and temporal structure of vocal turn-taking during spontaneous interactions between mothers and their children with cochlear implants (CI) over the first year after cochlear implantation as compared with interactions between mothers and children with normal hearing (NH).DesignMothers' unstructured play sessions with children with CI (n = 12) were recorded at 2 time points, 3 months (mean age 18.3 months) and 9 months (mean age 27.5 months) post-CI. A separate control group of mothers with age-matched hearing children (n = 12) was recorded at the same 2 time points. Five types of events were coded: mother and child vocalizations, vocalizations including speech overlap, and between- and within-speaker pauses. We analyzed the proportion of child and mother vocalizations involved in turn-taking, the temporal structure of turn-taking, and the temporal reciprocity of turn-taking using proportions of simultaneous speech and the duration of between- and within-speaker pauses.ResultsThe CI group produced a significantly smaller proportion of vocalizations in turn-taking than the NH group at the first session; however, CI children's proportion of vocalizations in turn-taking increased over time. There was a significantly larger proportion of simultaneous speech in the CI compared with the NH group at the first session. The CI group produced longer between-speaker pauses as compared with those in the NH group at the first session with mothers decreasing the duration of between-speaker pauses over time. NH infants and mothers in both groups produced longer within- than between-speaker pauses but CI infants demonstrated the opposite pattern. In addition, the duration of mothers' between-speaker pauses (CI and NH) was predicted by the duration of the infants' between-speaker pauses.ConclusionsVocal turn-taking and timing in both members of the dyad, the mother and infant, were sensitive to the experiential effects of child hearing loss and remediation with CI. Child hearing status affected dyad-specific coordination in the timing of responses between mothers and their children.

Project description:Isolation calls produced by dependent young are a fundamental form of communication. For species in which vocal signals remain important to adult communication, the function and social context of vocal behavior changes dramatically with the onset of sexual maturity. The ontogenetic relationship between these distinct forms of acoustic communication is surprisingly under-studied. We conducted a detailed analysis of vocal development in sister species of Neotropical singing mice, Scotinomys teguina and S. xerampelinus. Adult singing mice are remarkable for their advertisement songs, rapidly articulated trills used in long-distance communication; the vocal behavior of pups was previously undescribed. We recorded 30 S. teguina and 15 S. xerampelinus pups daily, from birth to weaning; 23 S. teguina and 11 S. xerampelinus were recorded until sexual maturity. Like other rodent species with poikilothermic young, singing mice were highly vocal during the first weeks of life and stopped vocalizing before weaning. Production of first advertisement songs coincided with the onset of sexual maturity after a silent period of ?2 weeks. Species differences in vocal behavior emerged early in ontogeny and notes that comprise adult song were produced from birth. However, the organization and relative abundance of distinct note types was very different between pups and adults. Notably, the structure, note repetition rate, and intra-individual repeatability of pup vocalizations did not become more adult-like with age; the highly stereotyped structure of adult song appeared de novo in the first songs of young adults. We conclude that, while the basic elements of adult song are available from birth, distinct selection pressures during maternal dependency, dispersal, and territorial establishment favor major shifts in the structure and prevalence of acoustic signals. This study provides insight into how an evolutionarily conserved form of acoustic signaling provides the raw material for adult vocalizations that are highly species specific.

Dataset Information

Vocal turn-taking in a non-human primate is learned during ontogeny.

Publications

Vocal turn-taking in a non-human primate is learned during ontogeny.

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