From ethological ethics yahoo group.....
http://www.nature.com/nsu/030623/030623-8.html
Monkeys link faces and sounds
Humans may have evolved a language skill from primate
ancestors.
26 June 2003
HELEN R. PILCHER
Rhesus monkeys can match up sounds and facial
expressions, research suggests1. It hints that our
capacity to do likewise may have evolved from our
primate ancestors.
"Some people had thought that the ability was unique
to humans," says Asif Ghazanfar of the Max Planck
Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Germany, who
studied the monkeys. Other animals had simply not been
tested.
In captivity and the wild, rhesus monkeys (Macaca
mulatta) produce a variety of noises. "Almost all have
a unique facial expression," says Ghazanfar.
Two calls tip the top 15 sounds in the rhesus
repertoire. Animals in danger make a short, sharp
threatening call - eyes wide, ears flat, mouth wide
open. If times are good, they may 'coo', with lips
pouting and open just a little.
Ghazanfar showed 11 adult monkeys silent side-by-side
videos of threat and coo expressions. When he played
the sound of one call, the animals looked straight at
the matching face, he found. Over 65% of the monkeys
got it right without any training.
Human infants can match voice to face from two months
old - long before they have learned to speak. The new
results suggest that we may have inherited the trick
from primate forebears.
"This skill is critical to language development," says
psychologist Janet Werker from the University of
British Columbia, Canada, who studies infant speech.
"It helps the child figure out who is speaking and
where the voice is coming from," she adds.
The findings might also help researchers understand
how language is represented in the brain. The vocal
and facial components of speech may be represented in
intimately linked regions, suggests Werker.
References
1. Ghazanfar, A. A. & Logothetis, N. K. Facial
expressions linked to monkey calls. Nature, 423, 937 -
938, (2003). |Article|
© Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003