TY - JOUR

T1 - Comprehension of iconic gestures by chimpanzees and human children

AU - Bohn, Manuel

AU - Call, Josep

AU - Tomasello, Michael

N1 - Funding Information: We thank Claudia Salomo and Sebastian Schütte for their support during data collection, Raik Pieszek for building the apparatuses, Roger Mundry for providing statistical support, Marike Schreiber for preparing the graphs, Shona Duguid for providing helpful comments, Suska Nolte and Philipp Berger for providing reliability coding, and all of the children and their parents for their participation. We also thank the animal caretakers of the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Center for their help with the chimpanzees. This research was partly supported by a short-term grant awarded by the University of Vienna , Austria to the first author. Publisher Copyright: © 2015 Elsevier Inc.

PY - 2016/2/1

Y1 - 2016/2/1

N2 - Iconic gestures-communicative acts using hand or body movements that resemble their referent-figure prominently in theories of language evolution and development. This study contrasted the abilities of chimpanzees (N=11) and 4-year-old human children (N=24) to comprehend novel iconic gestures. Participants learned to retrieve rewards from apparatuses in two distinct locations, each requiring a different action. In the test, a human adult informed the participant where to go by miming the action needed to obtain the reward. Children used the iconic gestures (more than arbitrary gestures) to locate the reward, whereas chimpanzees did not. Some children also used arbitrary gestures in the same way, but only after they had previously shown comprehension for iconic gestures. Over time, chimpanzees learned to associate iconic gestures with the appropriate location faster than arbitrary gestures, suggesting at least some recognition of the iconicity involved. These results demonstrate the importance of iconicity in referential communication.

AB - Iconic gestures-communicative acts using hand or body movements that resemble their referent-figure prominently in theories of language evolution and development. This study contrasted the abilities of chimpanzees (N=11) and 4-year-old human children (N=24) to comprehend novel iconic gestures. Participants learned to retrieve rewards from apparatuses in two distinct locations, each requiring a different action. In the test, a human adult informed the participant where to go by miming the action needed to obtain the reward. Children used the iconic gestures (more than arbitrary gestures) to locate the reward, whereas chimpanzees did not. Some children also used arbitrary gestures in the same way, but only after they had previously shown comprehension for iconic gestures. Over time, chimpanzees learned to associate iconic gestures with the appropriate location faster than arbitrary gestures, suggesting at least some recognition of the iconicity involved. These results demonstrate the importance of iconicity in referential communication.

KW - Chimpanzees

KW - Evolution

KW - Iconic gestures

KW - Language development

KW - Referential communication

KW - Social cognition

KW - Psychology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84943157096&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.jecp.2015.09.001

DO - 10.1016/j.jecp.2015.09.001

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 26448391

AN - SCOPUS:84943157096

VL - 142

SP - 1

EP - 17

JO - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

JF - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

SN - 0022-0965

ER -