Gesturing 'may be aping chimps'

Italians who talk as much with their hands as their voices may be aping the way chimpanzees communicate.

Scientists have discovered chimps and bonobos communicate more freely using gestures than they do by means of vocal sounds and facial expressions. Their findings support the theory that human language evolved from Latin-like gesturing.

US experts from the Yerkes National Primate Research Centre at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, worked with two groups of 13 bonobos and 34 chimpanzees. Bonobos, which live in just one part of Africa and resemble small chimps, are the world's most human-like apes.

Both species used almost identical facial and vocal signals, but the same was not true for manual gestures.

Gestures were less closely tied to a particular emotion and served a more adaptable function. A single gesture could communicate an entirely different message depending on the social context in which it was used.

Differences in the use of gestures not only existed between the two species, but between individuals within the same species. Bonobos used gestures more flexibly than chimpanzees.

However one gesture - holding out an open hand to beg - was common to chimps, bonobos and humans.

Dr Frans de Waal, a member of the research team whose findings appear in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said: "This gesture can be used for food, if there is food around, but it can also be used to beg for help, for support, for money and so-on. It's meaning is context-dependent."

The begging gesture may have been inherited from the last common ancestor of apes and humans, said the scientists. Both bonobos and chimpanzees engaged in multi-modal communication, combining hand or feet gestures with facial expressions and vocalisations.

"While chimpanzees produce more of these combinations, bonobos respond to them more often," said Dr Amy Pollick, another of the study's authors. "This finding suggests the bonobo is a better model of symbolic communication in our early ancestors."

Source : http://www.channel4.com