animal communication

Exploring emotion in the expression of ape gesture

Language appears to be the most complex system of animal communication described to date. However, its precursors were present in the communication of our evolutionary ancestors and are likely shared by our modern ape cousins.  All great apes, including humans, employ a rich repertoire of vocalizations, facial expressions, and gestures. Great ape gestural repertoires are particularly elaborate, with ape species employing over 80 different gesture types intentionally: that is towards a recipient with a specific goal in mind. Intentional usage allows us to ask not only what information is encoded in ape gestures, but what do apes mean when they use them. I will discuss recent research on ape gesture, on how we approach the question of decoding meaning, and how with new methods we are starting to integrate long overlooked aspects of ape gesture such as group and individual variation, and expression and emotion into our study of these signals.