Where have all the (ape) gestures gone?

Richard W Byrne (1) , Hélène Cochet (2)

1 Scottish Primate Research Group and Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution
2 CLLE-LTC - Cognition, Langues, Langage, Ergonomie

Comparative analysis of the gestural communica- tion of our nearest animal relatives, the great apes, implies that humans should have the biological potential to produce and understand 60–70 gestures, by virtue of shared common de- scent. These gestures are used intentionally in apes to convey separate requests, rather than as referential items in syntacti- cally structured signals. At present, no such legacy of shared gesture has been described in humans. We suggest that the fate of Bape gestures^ in modern human communication is rele- vant to the debate regarding the evolution of language through a possible intermediate stage of gestural protolanguage.

Mots clés: Communication; Gesture; Great ape; Language origin

Domaines: Psychologie

Richard W Byrne, Hélène Cochet. Where have all the (ape) gestures gone?. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 2017, 24 (1), pp.68-71. ⟨10.3758/s13423-016-1071-0⟩. ⟨halshs-01464537⟩