Pika-etal2018

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Pika-etal2018
BibType ARTICLE
Key Pika-etal2018
Author(s) Simone Pika, Ray Wilkinson, Kobin H. Kendrick, Sonja C. Vernes
Title Taking turns: bridging the gap between human and animal communication
Editor(s)
Tag(s) Turn-taking, animal communication
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Year 2018
Language English
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Month jun
Journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Volume 285
Number 1880
Pages
URL Link
DOI 10.1098/rspb.2018.0598
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Abstract

Language, humans' most distinctive trait, still remains a ‘mystery' for evolutionary theory. It is underpinned by a universal infrastructure—cooperative turn-taking—which has been suggested as an ancient mechanism bridging the existing gap between the articulate human species and their inarticulate primate cousins. However, we know remarkably little about turn-taking systems of non-human animals, and methodological confounds have often prevented meaningful cross-species comparisons. Thus, the extent to which cooperative turn-taking is uniquely human or represents a homologous and/or analogous trait is currently unknown. The present paper draws attention to this promising research avenue by providing an overview of the state of the art of turn-taking in four animal taxa—birds, mammals, insects and anurans. It concludes with a new comparative framework to spur more research into this research domain and to test which elements of the human turn-taking system are shared across species and taxa.

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