![]() ![]() So far, early results from 27 brain scans of baby baboons suggest that his hypothesis is correct, and apes use similar asymmetric brain areas when they gesture as humans do when they gesture and speak.īy comparing these results in baboons with other primates, including humans, gorillas, chimps, and monkeys, Meguerditchian hopes to unravel whether they too share a similar asymmetric system in the brain for communication. “The questions is, if language is mostly in the left hemisphere in humans, what about gesture in non-human primates? If it is the same system, which was used by a common ancestor between us, gesture in baboons might also be related to this left hemisphere specialization of the brain in baboons.” Meguerditchian is using magnetic resonance imaging to study baboon baby brains to see if they use a similar part of their brain when they learn to gesture. Certain regions on the left side of our brain, such as Broca’s area, are especially important when we speak. In human babies, which learn to gesture at objects before they can speak, the left side of their brain seems to be engaged when they do so. “Baboons are also able to point to food they want and use gaze, like children can.” “When baboons invite someone to play, they will use their hands,” he says. Meguerditchian is studying both adult and baby baboons to see which gestures they learn and the parts of their brains that might be involved. Given both primates and humans can communicate through gestures, it provides a way of comparing how gestures are related to brain asymmetry for language and to unravel whether there are differences in how each species communicate. “If you want to understand the origins of language, you need to understand not only animal cognition and communication but also its brain specialization in comparison with humans, and that is what we do in primate species,” he says. Given that gestures in primates seem to involve several key properties that underpin spoken language, Meguerditchian wants to see if primates undergo similar brain asymmetry when they gesture to each other. ![]() Most language properties involve asymmetric organization of the human brain between the two hemispheres. ![]() “The idea is to look at language, not just as speech, but seeing it as a constellation of many cognitive properties,” says Meguerditchian. Lifting a foot toward another chimp means “climb on me,” while stroking their mouth can mean “give me the object.” In the past, researchers have also successfully taught apes more than 100 words in sign language. Wild chimpanzees have been seen to use at least 66 different hand signals and movements to communicate with each other. Many primate species use gestures to communicate with others in their groups. Gestures are more important to language than linguists used to believe. And with no other living relatives able to communicate as we do, it has made understanding the origins of language a knotty problem.īut Adrien Meguerditchian, a primatologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research and Aix-Marseille University, believes that gestures could be a key landmark in the evolution of language-and these are something we do have in common with other primates. There were attempts in the 1950s to teach chimpanzees to “speak” some words, but these failed. Our ability to use subtle combinations of sounds produced by our vocal cords to create words and sentences, which when combined with grammatical rules, convey complex ideas. There are few one-offs in life on Earth-rarely can a single species boast a trait or ability that no other possesses. ![]()
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