importance of animal communication essay

This page has been archived and is no longer updated

An Introduction to Animal Communication

The ability to communicate effectively with other individuals plays a critical role in the lives of all animals. Whether we are examining how moths attract a mate, ground squirrels convey information about nearby predators, or chimpanzees maintain positions in a dominance hierarchy, communication systems are involved. Here, I provide a primer about the types of communication signals used by animals and the variety of functions they serve. Animal communication is classically defined as occurring when “...the action of or cue given by one organism [the sender] is perceived by and thus alters the probability pattern of behavior in another organism [the receiver] in a fashion adaptive to either one both of the participants” (Wilson 1975). While both a sender and receiver must be involved for communication to occur (Figure 1), in some cases only one player benefits from the interaction. For example, female Photuris fireflies manipulate smaller, male Photinus fireflies by mimicking the flash signals produced by Photinus females. When males investigate the signal, they are voraciously consumed by the larger firefly (Lloyd 1975; Figure 2). This is clearly a case where the sender benefits and the receiver does not. Alternatively, in the case of fringe-lipped bats, Trachops cirrhosus , and tungara frogs, Physalaemus pustulosus , the receiver is the only player that benefits from the interaction. Male tungara frogs produce advertisement calls to attract females to their location; while the signal is designed to be received by females, eavesdropping fringe-lipped bats also detect the calls, and use that information to locate and capture frogs (Ryan et al . 1982). Despite these examples, there are many cases in which both the sender and receiver benefit from exchanging information. Greater sage grouse nicely illustrate such “true communication”; during the mating season, males produce strutting displays that are energetically expensive, and females use this honest information about male quality to choose which individuals to mate with (Vehrencamp et al . 1989).

Figure 1 A model of animal communication.

Figure 2:  Photinus fireflies. Courtesy of Tom Eisner.

Signal Modalities

Animals use a variety of sensory channels, or signal modalities, for communication. Visual signals are very effective for animals that are active during the day. Some visual signals are permanent advertisements; for example, the bright red epaulets of male red-winged blackbirds, Agelaius phoeniceus, which are always displayed, are important for territory defense. When researchers experimentally blackened epaulets, males were subject to much higher rates of intrusion by other males (Smith 1972). Alternatively, some visual signals are actively produced by an individual only under appropriate conditions. Male green anoles, Anolis carolinensis, bob their head and extend a brightly colored throat fan (dewlap) when signaling territory ownership. Acoustic communication is also exceedingly abundant in nature, likely because sound can be adapted to a wide variety of environmental conditions and behavioral situations. Sounds can vary substantially in amplitude, duration, and frequency structure, all of which impact how far the sound will travel in the environment and how easily the receiver can localize the position of the sender. For example, many passerine birds emit pure-tone alarm calls that make localization difficult, while the same species produce more complex, broadband mate attraction songs that allow conspecifics to easily find the sender (Marler 1955). A particularly specialized form of acoustic communication is seen in microchiropteran bats and cetaceans that use high-frequency sounds to detect and localize prey. After sound emission, the returning echo is detected and processed, ultimately allowing the animal to build a picture of their surrounding environment and make very accurate assessments of prey location. Compared to visual and acoustic modalities, chemical signals travel much more slowly through the environment since they must diffuse from the point source of production. Yet, these signals can be transmitted over long distances and fade slowly once produced. In many moth species, females produce chemical cues and males follow the trail to the female’s location. Researchers attempted to tease apart the role of visual and chemical signaling in silkmoths, Bombyx mori , by giving males the choice between a female in a transparent airtight box and a piece of filter paper soaked in chemicals produced by a sexually receptive female. Invariably, males were drawn to the source of the chemical signal and did not respond to the sight of the isolated female (Schneider 1974; Figure 3). Chemical communication also plays a critical role in the lives of other animals, some of which have a specialized vomeronasal organ that is used exclusively to detect chemical cues. For example, male Asian elephants, Elaphus maximus , use the vomeronasal organ to process chemical cues in female’s urine and detect if she is sexually receptive (Rasmussen et al . 1982).

Figure 3 Male silkmoths are more strongly attracted to the pheromones produced by females (chemical signal) than the sight of a female in an airtight box (visual signal). Tactile signals, in which physical contact occurs between the sender and the receiver, can only be transmitted over very short distances. Tactile communication is often very important in building and maintaining relationship among social animals. For example, chimpanzees that regularly groom other individuals are rewarded with greater levels of cooperation and food sharing (de Waal 1989). For aquatic animals living in murky waters, electrical signaling is an ideal mode of communication. Several species of mormyrid fish produce species-specific electrical pulses, which are primarily used for locating prey via electrolocation, but also allow individuals searching for mates to distinguish conspecifics from heterospecifics. Foraging sharks have the ability to detect electrical signals using specialized electroreceptor cells in the head region, which are used for eavesdropping on the weak bioelectric fields of prey (von der Emde 1998).

Signal Functions

Some of the most extravagant communication signals play important roles in sexual advertisement and mate attraction. Successful reproduction requires identifying a mate of the appropriate species and sex, as well as assessing indicators of mate quality. Male satin bowerbirds, Ptilonorhynchus violaceus , use visual signals to attract females by building elaborate bowers decorated with brightly colored objects. When a female approaches the bower, the male produces an elaborate dance, which may or may not end with the female allowing the male to copulate with her (Borgia 1985). Males that do not produce such visual signals have little chance of securing a mate. While females are generally the choosy sex due to greater reproductive investment, there are species in which sexual roles are reversed and females produce signals to attract males. For example, in the deep-snouted pipefish, Syngnathus typhle , females that produce a temporary striped pattern during the mating period are more attractive to males than unornamented females (Berglund et al . 1997). Communication signals also play an important role in conflict resolution, including territory defense. When males are competing for access to females, the costs of engaging in physical combat can be very high; hence natural selection has favored the evolution of communication systems that allow males to honestly assess the fighting ability of their opponents without engaging in combat. Red deer, Cervus elaphus , exhibit such a complex signaling system. During the mating season, males strongly defend a group of females, yet fighting among males is relatively uncommon. Instead, males exchange signals indicative of fighting ability, including roaring and parallel walks. An altercation between two males most often escalates to a physical fight when individuals are closely matched in size, and the exchange of visual and acoustic signals is insufficient for determining which animal is most likely to win a fight (Clutton-Brock et al . 1979). Communication signals are often critical for allowing animals to relocate and accurately identify their own young. In species that produce altricial young, adults regularly leave their offspring at refugia, such as a nest, to forage and gather resources. Upon returning, adults must identify their own offspring, which can be especially difficult in highly colonial species. Brazilian free-tailed bats, Tadarida brasiliensis , form cave colonies containing millions of bats; when females leave the cave each night to forage, they place their pup in a crèche that contains thousands of other young. When females return to the roost, they face the challenge of locating their own pups among thousands of others. Researchers originally thought that such a discriminatory task was impossible, and that females simply fed any pups that approached them, yet further work revealed that females find and nurse their own pup 83% of the time (McCracken 1984, Balcombe 1990). Females are able to make such fantastic discriminations using a combination of spatial memory, acoustic signaling, and chemical signaling. Specifically, pups produce individually-distinct “isolation calls”, which the mother can recognize and detect from a moderate distance. Upon closer inspection of a pup, females use scent to further confirm the pup’s identity. Many animals rely heavily on communication systems to convey information about the environment to conspecifics, especially close relatives. A fantastic illustration comes from vervet monkeys, Chlorocebus pygerythrus , in which adults give alarm calls to warn colony members about the presence of a specific type of predator. This is especially valuable as it conveys the information needed to take appropriate actions given the characteristics of the predator (Figure 4). For example, emitting a “cough” call indicates the presence of an aerial predator, such as an eagle; colony members respond by seeking cover amongst vegetation on the ground (Seyfarth & Cheney 1980). Such an evasive reaction would not be appropriate if a terrestrial predator, such as a leopard, were approaching.

Figure 4 Vervet monkeys. Many animals have sophisticated communication signals for facilitating integration of individuals into a group and maintaining group cohesion. In group-living species that form dominance hierarchies, communication is critical for maintaining ameliorative relationships between dominants and subordinates. In chimpanzees, lower-ranking individuals produce submissive displays toward higher-ranking individuals, such as crouching and emitting “pant-grunt” vocalizations. In turn, dominants produce reconciliatory signals that are indicative of low aggression. Communication systems also are important for coordinating group movements. Contact calls, which inform individuals about the location of groupmates that are not in visual range, are used by a wide variety of birds and mammals. Overall, studying communication not only gives us insight into the inner worlds of animals, but also allows us to better answer important evolutionary questions. As an example, when two isolated populations exhibit divergence over time in the structure of signals use to attract mates, reproductive isolation can occur. This means that even if the populations converge again in the future, the distinct differences in critical communication signals may cause individuals to only select mates from their own population. For example, three species of lacewings that are closely related and look identical are actually reproductively isolated due to differences in the low-frequency songs produced by males; females respond much more readily to songs from their own species compared to songs from other species (Martinez, Wells & Henry 1992). A thorough understanding of animal communication systems can also be critical for making effective decisions about conservation of threatened and endangered species. As an example, recent research has focused on understanding how human-generated noise (from cars, trains, etc) can impact communication in a variety of animals (Rabin et al . 2003). As the field of animal communication continues to expand, we will learn more about information exchange in a wide variety of species and better understand the fantastic variety of signals we see animals produce in nature.

Vomeronasal organ – auxiliary olfactory organ that detects chemosensory cues

Altricial – the state of being born in an immature state and relying exclusively on parental care for survival during early development

Refugia – areas that provide concealment from predators and/or protection from harsh environmental conditions

Conspecifics – organisms of the same species

References and Recommended Reading

Balcombe, J.P. Vocal recognition of pups by mother Mexican free-tailed bats, Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana . Animal Behaviour 39 , 960-966 (1990). Berglund, J., Rosenqvist G. and Bernet P. Ornamentation predicts reproductive success in female pipefish. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 40 , 145-150 (1997). Clutton-Brock, T., Albon S., Gibson S. & Guinness F. The logical stag: Adaptive aspects of fighing in the red deer. Animal Behaviour 27 , 211-225 (1979). de Waal F.B.M. Food sharing and reciprocal obligations among chimpanzees. Journal of Human Evolution 18 , 433–459 (1989).

Hauser, M. 1997. The Evolution of Communication . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lloyd, J.E. Aggressive mimicry in Photuris: signal repertoires by femmes fatales. Science 197 , 452-453 (1975).

Marler, P. Characteristics of some animal calls. Nature 176 , 6-8 (1955). Martinez Well, M. & Henry C.S. The role of courtship songs in reproductive isolation among populations of green lacewings of the genus Chrysoperla . Evolution 46 , 31-43 (1992). McCracken, G.F. Communal nursing in Mexican free-tailed bat maternity colonies. Science 223 , 1090-1091(1984).

Rabin, L.A., McCowan B., Hooper S.L & Owings D.H. Anthropogenic noise and its effect on animal communication: an interface between comparative psychology and conservation biology. International Journal of Comparative Psychology 16 , 172-192 (2003). Ryan M.J., Tuttle M.D., & Rand A.S. Sexual advertisement and bat predation in a neotropical frog. American Naturalist 119 , 136–139 (1982). Schneider, D. The sex attractant receptors of moths. Scientific American 231 , 28-35 (1974). Seyfarth, R.M., Cheney D.L. & Marler P. Monkey responses to three different alarm calls: Evidence for predator classification and semantic communication. Science 210 , 801-803 (1980). Smith, D. The role of the epaulets in the red-winged blackbird, ( Agelaius phoeniceus ) social system. Behaviour 41 , 251-268 (1972).

Vehrencamp, S.L., Bradbury J.W., & Gibson R.M. The energetic cost of display in male sage grouse. Animal Behaviour 38 , 885-896 (1989). von der Emde, G. Electroreception. In D. H. Evans (ed.). The Physiology of Fishes , pp. 313-343. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press (1998). Wilson, E.O. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (1975).

Article History

Flag inappropriate.

Email your Friend

•  |  Lead Editor:  Sara Tenney

Within this Subject (24)

• Basic (13)
• Intermediate (5)
• Advanced (6)

Other Topic Rooms

• Ecosystem Ecology
• Physiological Ecology
• Population Ecology
• Community Ecology
• Global and Regional Ecology
• Conservation and Restoration
• Animal Behavior
• Teach Ecology
• Earth's Climate: Past, Present, and Future
• Terrestrial Geosystems
• Marine Geosystems
• Scientific Underpinnings
• Paleontology and Primate Evolution
• Human Fossil Record
• The Living Primates

© 2014 Nature Education

• Press Room |
• Terms of Use |
• Privacy Notice |

Visual Browse

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

The central importance of information in studies of animal communication

2010, Animal Behaviour

Related Papers

Animal Communication Theory

Ulrich Stegmann

The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds

David Kalkman

Exactly what makes an interaction between two organisms a case of communication is contentious. Historically, debate has taken place between definitions of communication invoking information transmission vs definitions invoking causal influence. More recently, there has been some convergence on a hybrid definition: invoking (co-adapted) causal influence mediated via the transmission of information. After proposing an understanding of what it means to say that a receiver is causally influenced by the transmission of information, I argue that an information-mediated influence definition overextends to include most, indeed maybe all, co-adapted interactions. This is because the transmission of correlational information is actually a feature of most, if not all, co-adapted interactions. I end by considering whether adding an arbitrariness criterion to an information-mediated influence definition helps. After giving an account of what arbitrariness amounts to, I argue that it swings things too far in the opposite direction: we go from a definition of communication that is too liberal to one that is too restrictive. This is because many signal kinds are not arbitrary. It turns out to be extremely difficult to capture what makes communication unique.

Information and Influence

Selvino Kort

Animal Behaviour

Michael Owren

Zhanna Reznikova

Biology & Philosophy

Drew Rendall

Acta Ethologica

Gillian Forrester

Marian Dawkins

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci
• v.375(1789); 2020 Jan 6

Animal cognition and the evolution of human language: why we cannot focus solely on communication

Associated data.

This article has no additional data.

Studies of animal communication are often assumed to provide the ‘royal road’ to understanding the evolution of human language. After all, language is the pre-eminent system of human communication: doesn't it make sense to search for its precursors in animal communication systems? From this viewpoint, if some characteristic feature of human language is lacking in systems of animal communication, it represents a crucial gap in evolution, and evidence for an evolutionary discontinuity. Here I argue that we should reverse this logic: because a defining feature of human language is its ability to flexibly represent and recombine concepts, precursors for many important components of language should be sought in animal cognition rather than animal communication. Animal communication systems typically only permit expression of a small subset of the concepts that can be represented and manipulated by that species. Thus, if a particular concept is not expressed in a species' communication system this is not evidence that it lacks that concept. I conclude that if we focus exclusively on communicative signals, we sell the comparative analysis of language evolution short. Therefore, animal cognition provides a crucial (and often neglected) source of evidence regarding the biology and evolution of human language.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘What can animal communication teach us about human language?’

1. Introduction

I have not, to my knowledge, spoken the word ‘octopus’ today or indeed in the past week, but no one would therefore conclude that I lack the concept OCTOPUS (here I follow the philosopher's convention, when necessary, of denoting conceptual representations in capital letters). Indeed, I have spent many hours observing these creatures and read books about them but, like most of my mental concepts, OCTOPUS goes unexpressed in my speech most of the time. This is not only true of concepts captured by single words (like ‘octopus’, ‘chartreuse’, ‘quasar’ or ‘exponent’) but for more complex cognitive constructs that I possess (like how to walk from the Jardin de Luxembourg to the Place Stravinsky in Paris, via Notre Dame) but have never spoken at all. Humans possess many concepts, within individual minds, that go unexpressed via their language output for long periods of time (and some may never be expressed verbally). However, my assumption in what follows is that pretty much any human concept could be expressed in language, with perhaps hours or days of effort, and with varying degrees of accuracy, difficulty and concision. This capability to express any concept goes far beyond what any other species can do.

In what follows, I will take the basic observation that most concepts go unexpressed as axiomatic and argue that the same is true regarding animal communication, only more so (using ‘animal’ as shorthand for ‘non-human animal’ hereafter). For at least in principle, I might, under some circumstances, exclaim ‘Octopus!’ (e.g. when seeing one unexpectedly) or tell you the way to the Place Stravinsky (if you asked me), providing evidence that I indeed possess these concepts. By contrast, it is the nature of all known animal communication systems that they allow their bearers to express only a small subset of the concepts they can remember, represent and manipulate productively (cf. [ 1 ]). For example, honeybees have excellent colour vision and can remember the colours of the flowers they visit, but the honeybee dance ‘language’ allows a forager to communicate only the spatial location of the flower and has no provision for expressing colour information. I will provide evidence for this below and review similar evidence for other species, including non-human primates. I conclude that animal communication systems appear to be intrinsically limited to a smallish set of fitness-relevant messages that relate to such factors as food, danger, aggression, appeasement or personal prowess. But a substantial literature in animal cognition reveals that they know much more than this, even if they have no way of saying it [ 2 ].

The core argument is that, just as a person's utterances reveal only a subset of what they know, animal communication signals express an intrinsically limited subset of that species' conceptual storehouse. The argument that most thoughts are not expressed is by no means new: it follows Jackendoff's (2002) model of linguistic semantics closely and is also consonant with Chomsky's model [ 3 , 4 ]. Both Hurford [ 2 ] and Bickerton [ 5 ] have explored its implications for language evolution at book length [ 2 , 5 ], as have I more briefly [ 1 ]. My aim here is simply to argue this crucial point sharply and concisely, for although these ideas should not be controversial, they are rejected by some prominent philosophers, and even when accepted, their implications are ignored in many recent discussions of language evolution (e.g. [ 6 , 7 ]).

The central implication of my thesis is that the field of animal cognition has a very important role to play in our understanding of human language evolution because the fact that animals have concepts (whether expressible via signalling or not) erases a potentially gaping evolutionary chasm that would exist if they did not. Apparent discontinuities between humans and animal cognition that ‘pose a severe challenge for evolutionary explanation’ ([ 6 ], p.3), may in fact be based on discontinuities between language and other species' communication systems. This elision between two different things—cognition and communication—is at best misleading and often pernicious. The study of animal communication is indeed important for comparative analysis of language evolution, most obviously relevant for factors involved in externalization, such as vocal learning, speech perception and gestural communication. But to get the full comparative picture, we need to embrace animal cognition as a central and in some cases the central source of information relevant to the biology and evolution of language (and human cognition more generally).

2. Words ≠ concepts

Before discussing animals, it is important to first clarify some basic issues about the nature of human concepts, and to at least dip our toes into the philosophical quagmire surrounding the term ‘concept’ (for a concise introduction see [ 8 ]). My take on concepts in this essay will be essentially that of mainstream cognitive (neuro)science today, where a concept is simply ‘a nonlinguistic psychological representation of a class of entities in the world’ (Murphy [ 9 ], p. 335).

More specifically, my perspective is mentalistic and representationalist. I assume that concepts are mind-internal entities—‘representations’—that often, but not necessarily, correspond to some entities ‘out there’ in the world. It is physicalist: conceptual representations ultimately consist of neural activity in brains (they have no platonic existence, independent of minds). Finally, it is pluralistic, meaning that it allows for different types of concepts, some best captured by definitions, others by prototypes and still others as abilities to discriminate or act. Although much ink has been shed regarding the virtues and flaws of these different interpretations, both in cognitive science [ 9 ] and philosophy [ 10 – 13 ], precisely where one stands on these philosophical issues will have little relevance to my comparative argument here.

However, one central issue, illustrated in figure 1 , cannot be ignored, concerning a long-running philosophical debate between ‘mentalists’ (virtually all modern cognitive scientists) and ‘referentialist’ philosophers like Quine or Putnam [ 12 , 13 ]. Referentialists posit a direct referential linkage between utterances and their real-world referents. The referentialist doctrine was dominant in behaviourist psychology of language, which privileged observable behaviours (such as speaking words and pointing) over invisible mental constructs. But it has fallen by the wayside in modern cognitive science—at least regarding human language [ 3 , 14 ]. The alternative mentalist perspective (also termed the ‘internalist’ or ‘conceptualist’ perspective, [ 3 , 4 ]) holds that words do not refer directly to things in the world, but rather express our (mind-internal) concepts. To paraphrase Strawson ‘words don't refer, people refer’ [ 15 ]. The concepts we express linguistically may correspond to real entities in the world, but in many cases (e.g. ‘Sherlock Holmes’, ‘the unicorn in my dream’), they do not.

Mentalist model of concepts and meaning: contemporary cognitive scientists argue that words and sentences connection to their referents is indirect, and that reference requires the intervention of a (private) mental concept. Thus, an organism can have a concept (illustrated by the thought bubbles) independently of any words, sentences or other signals that express this concept. Referential links between real-world objects or events and non-verbal mental concepts (representations) can exist even if an organism has no means in its communication system to express those concepts.

The modern mentalist perspective in cognitive science sees acts of referring (e.g. by speaking) as being indirect. That is, reference involves two separable phenomena ( figure 1 ): first a mental representation of an entity is recognized, recalled or otherwise activated, and second some utterance is produced which may, if successful, elicit a similar though not identical mental representation in the listener. For example, observing a cat walk behind a tree, I may form a mental representation of CAT BEHIND TREE. This complex concept is the first step in reference: a correspondence between real-world events (e.g. visual patterns interpreted as cats and trees) and the resulting mental representation. Generating this particular non-verbal concept is accomplished by the visual system, is private, and (I argue below) essentially the same type of cognitive processing that occurs when a dog sees a cat go behind a tree (who perhaps indicates this knowledge by straining at its leash).

The second stage of reference—externalization—is the one with a public, perceivable component: under some circumstance, I may choose to say ‘there's a cat behind that tree’ or perhaps ‘hinter dem Baum ist eine Katze’ (in German). This second step in referring links my mental representation to some signal in English, German, American sign language, etc. Crucially, my mental representation is the same for either sentence (the very idea of translation—that different sentences in different languages can refer to the very same concept—assumes some language-independent conceptual world). Again the link between the concept CAT BEHIND TREE and either of these sentences is initially an internal matter, within the speaker's mind, and dependent on their personal conceptual and linguistic competences. However, if finally I utter one of these sentences, the utterance enters the public sphere and may cause an appropriately equipped listener to form their own mental representation CAT BEHIND TREE (probably different in detail from mine). Linguistic communication—concept sharing—has occurred.

This indirect model may sound overly complicated or obscure. We have a strong intuition that words themselves ‘mean things’ and sentences ‘refer’, regardless of whether anyone reads or understands them. This intuition about direct reference is hard to shake and still taken quite seriously by some philosophers. This may be because the intuition is biologically grounded, stemming from a ‘referential drive’ to interpret words as meaningful, part of the species-typical ‘instinct to learn’ that underpins child language acquisition [ 1 ]. For the child inferring word meanings, the simple notion that words mean things provides a useful shortcut to get the semantic system up and running. This intuition persists into adulthood, leading to superstitious beliefs (the magical powers of names or ritual chants). Despite providing a concise shorthand for denoting the more circuitous process detailed above, the referentialist intuition is completely inadequate as a full description of linguistic meaning [ 3 ]. Freeing ourselves from the shackles of this prescientific intuition is the first step to insightful scientific analysis.

Embracing this indirect, two-step nature of reference, I can now state my argument more clearly: the first stage of reference—building representations that tie sensory input to conceptual representations—is built upon a chassis of cognitive processes (sensory processing, recognition, categorization, combination and inference) that has fundamental shared components between humans and other animals. These components long predated language. The second stage of ‘externalization’—the capacity to form signals representing these non-verbal concepts—represents a crucial difference in humans and was one of the key innovations in human language evolution [ 16 ]. As Jackendoff puts it ‘phonology and syntax… evolved to express meaning, which has a far longer evolutionary pedigree’ ([ 3 ], p. 428).

It was once common to take a link between concepts and language as definitional, such that a ‘true’ concept must be linked to a word [ 17 , 18 ], but this traditional notion seems unsustainable in the face of infant research, where infants can clearly represent and reason about things they have no words for [ 19 – 22 ].

3. Do animals have concepts?

The considerations above lead most cognitive scientists to assume that the meanings of words and sentences are to be cashed out in non-linguistic mental representations: ‘concepts’ hereafter. However, the cognitive revolution remains incomplete: while few today deny the existence of internal mental representations (concepts) in humans, many remain suspicious when attributing them to animals. Animal cognition researchers are typically required to reject all possible associative explanations, regardless of their complexity, before attributing mental representations to animals [ 23 ] and the discipline spends considerable energy and ingenuity refuting so-called killjoy associative explanations [ 10 , 24 ]. Fortunately, the field has matured to the point where, for many phenomena, there can be little doubt that mental representations exist in animals, and can be recalled, manipulated and themselves represented [ 25 – 27 ].

Concepts should be, in some sense, general and flexible, and might initially be equated with mental ‘categories’. It is uncontested that birds and mammals learn and recall categories [ 28 , 29 ], but some have claimed that animal categories are little more than reflexes, reactively elicited in sensory cortices by sensory inputs and lacking the flexibility and generality of human concepts [ 18 , 30 ]. However, current data demonstrate that many species form cross-modal associations, showing that their categories are flexibly multi-modal [ 31 – 33 ]. Animals can summon categorical representations in the absence of relevant triggering stimuli, for instance seeking hidden food items at particular times, or re-hiding food items a potential thief saw them hide, in the absence of that thief [ 34 ]. They can compute abstract relationships like ‘same’ and ‘different’, for example, correctly choosing novel ‘same’ pairs when presented with two matched objects, and vice versa when given unmatched pairs [ 35 , 36 ]. Many species can compute transitive inferences: knowing that if A > B and B > C, then A must be greater than C as well [ 37 – 39 ]. These data fulfil the philosophers' desideratum that (animal) concepts should be more than unimodal, reflexive, stimulus-driven dispositions to react appropriately: they have an abstract categorical and relational structure.

A sceptical philosopher might still object that however impressive these cognitive abilities are, they do not ‘really’ constitute concepts. Concepts require not just categorization (first-order representations), but a second-order representation of that knowledge: knowing that (or doubting that, or being surprised that) some perceptual object belongs to the category. Animal concepts are limited, philosophers like Davidson argue, to first-order representations [ 40 ]. The most telling evidence against this ‘first-order’ view comes from studies on ‘metacognition’, where animals exhibit an understanding of their own conceptual representations (beliefs about beliefs). If uncertain about their own knowledge, they will choose a ‘don't know’ response, for lesser reward, rather than guessing [ 41 ]. Most research in this experimental paradigm been done on rhesus macaques but related work documents metacognition in dolphins, rats and pigeons (cf. [ 42 ]). Such experiments involve a response to some discrimination task, yielding a food reward, but an additional response is allowed for uncertain cases, often glossed as ‘I don't know’. The animal can choose the ‘don't know’ option when uncertain, receiving a smaller food reward than they would receive for a correct answer, but no punishment. Typically, in situations of high uncertainty (e.g. stimuli ambiguous from a human perspective), animals in these experiments choose the ‘uncertain’ button.

Although some critics have suggested that animals in such experiments simply form a new perceptual category (e.g. ‘unfamiliar’) and pushing the button for this, this possibility can be ruled out in most of the primate experiments (for the refutation of this and other ‘killjoy’ hypotheses, cf. [ 43 ]). Recent experiments are most compelling. Monkeys are first trained on one set of experimental stimuli, for example, based on colour discrimination, to learn the ‘don't know’ option. If this response was really tied to perceptual cues (e.g. colour) about the training stimuli, there should be no carry-over of this third option to novel stimulus sets. Instead, monkeys immediately transfer their appropriate use of the third option to novel situations (e.g. area discrimination) or even from past (retrospective) judgements to future (prospective) judgements [ 44 ]. This strongly suggests that the animals truly doubt their knowledge (represent their own uncertainty) and can transfer a response based on this meta-knowledge to novel situations. These and other data have convinced even previous sceptics that animals possess representations about representations, and therefore ‘concepts’ in this more demanding Davidsonian sense [ 45 ]. Of course, human metacognition is more sophisticated, involving thoughts about thoughts about thoughts… But that fact provides no empirical grounds to deny basic second-order metacognition to other animals. Given these modern data, denials that animals possess basic non-verbal concepts seem misinformed and anti-scientific (e.g. [ 30 ]).

I hasten to add that my claim here is not that animal concepts are of the same complexity or flexibility as those of humans. That would be absurdly anthropomorphic and would ignore the fact that language, as a multi-component system [ 16 ], also includes recursive compositional machinery that allows us to flexibly combine basic concepts into complex, hierarchically structured thoughts. This compositionality is a key component of linguistically structured thought, independent of externalization. Indeed, Chomsky terms it the ‘Basic Property’ of language and argues that it was selected in the human lineage precisely for its value in structuring internal thought, rather than externalizing these thoughts via speech [ 4 , 46 ]. There is at present little evidence of complex compositionality in animal communication or cognition (beyond things like transitivity, discussed below) [ 47 ]. But crucially, if we want to understand the evolution of this component, the appropriate starting point is animal conceptual abilities, and cannot be limited to the signals animal produce.

I now turn to the empirical data supporting my main contention that animals possess more concepts than their communication systems allow them to express. For reasons of space and concision, this is a very selective review—the data are so abundant that a full treatment requires an entire book (for this I recommend [ 2 , 29 ]). I will thus focus on a few examples from clever species, like primates and dolphins, plus honeybees, because these are well documented in easily accessible publications.

4. Animal signals ≠ animal concepts

To empirically demonstrate that a species can conceptualize more than they can express requires both an understanding of their communication system and independent data concerning their cognition. A nice example to start with is the honeybee Apis mellifera , in which communication and cognition are well-studied. The honeybee communication system allows a forager who has discovered flowers, upon returning to the hive, to inform other foragers of their location [ 48 , 49 ]. In the darkness of the hive, the bee performs a stereotyped (and apparently innate) ‘waggle dance’ whose direction, relative to gravity, signals the azimuth direction of the flowers (relative to the sun). The duration of the waggle portion correlates with the distance to the flowers, and by combining these cues, the dance provides a remarkably accurate indication of the location of these flowers. This system is also remarkable in ‘referring’ to an entity not currently present or visible to the communicators (thus sharing the property of ‘displacement’ with human language; [ 50 ]). Finally, the system is flexible, because a honeybee can ‘refer’ to the location of other objects than flowers when necessary, for instance, water or a new nest-site (I put ‘refer’ in quotes to avoid philosophical debate—I simply mean that a honeybee's dance reliably allows naive honeybees to locate the object in question).

Despite this impressive communication system, detailed studies of honeybee cognition reveal even more impressive cognitive abilities (reviewed in [ 51 ]). For example honeybees have excellent colour vision and can remember the colour of rewarding versus unrewarding nectar sources over days [ 52 , 53 ]. Nonetheless, their dance ‘language’ has no way to communicate colour information. Even more impressive, a honeybee can judge whether two stimuli are the same or different in colour or pattern [ 54 ] and generalize this behaviour to novel modalities (trained on colour, she immediately transfers the same/different decision to patterns or vice versa). Again, however, the honeybee dance language lacks signals for ‘same’ or ‘different’. Thus, even an insect whose brain occupies 1 mm 3 and contains less than a million neurons has cognitive abilities that significantly outstrip its ability to communicate them.

Turning now to a large-brained species, the bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus is another species for which we have solid data about both cognition and communication. Dolphins have sophisticated cognitive abilities rivalling those of non-human primates [ 31 ]. They rapidly learn a ‘delayed match-to-sample’ task and generalize across hundreds of novel sounds [ 55 ]. Dolphins can remember lists of items (spatial locations, visual objects or sounds), correctly indicating whether a probe stimulus was or was not in the list, and show a classic recency effect, like humans [ 31 ]. Dolphins show cross-modal integration, matching visually and acoustically perceived (via echolocation) object shapes, and show mirror self-recognition, inspecting themselves in a mirror when marked in an otherwise invisible location (and not doing so when sham-marked). Dolphins readily learn to interpret human signals, whether gestural (e.g. pointing) or auditory [ 56 ] and can understand novel combinations of signals (‘sentences’ made up of multiple gestures or sounds) on the first try, based on a simple order-based grammar (e.g. responding correctly to ‘take the hoop to the ball’ versus ‘take the ball to the hoop’). Dolphins can understand the abstract command ‘create’ indicating ‘do something novel’ by performing some new action or ‘repeat’ to perform the act again (thus requiring the dolphin to keep track of what it itself had done). All of these data indicate that dolphins have a flexible, productive capacity to learn, can self-monitor and can retain and manipulate novel concepts across multiple modalities.

However, turning to bottlenose dolphins' well-studied communication system, we get a very different picture. Early studies indicated a quite complex vocal communication system, and the ability of dolphins to learn human words suggested that they might have a ‘language’ of their own [ 57 ]. These suggestions led to careful experiments attempting to understand dolphin communication via observation and playback experiments that, on the contrary, suggested an ordinary mammalian repertoire of vocal signals [ 58 ], with the exception that dolphins are vocal learners and readily learn to mimic both conspecific and human-generated sounds [ 31 , 59 , 60 ]. Vocal learning is put to use in a ‘signature whistle’ system: dolphins emit an individual-specific whistle pattern (for example, when captured) that can be imitated by other dolphins, leading to exchanges and reuniting of separated animals [ 61 ]. Young dolphins initially acquire their whistles, by imitation [ 62 , 63 ]. Although this is an interesting system, with a capacity to signal individuals (reminiscent of ‘names’), it appears to be the most productive aspect of their vocal system.

The evidence against greater expressive ability comes from experiments where two dolphins are allowed to communicate vocally while solving a joint task [ 64 – 66 ]. Individual dolphins readily learn to push on a right or left paddle depending on a visual signal. With more training, two dolphins who can see each other can learn a social version: a signal perceived by one dolphin must be responded to by the other dolphin first, and only afterwards by the second, to provide a food reward to both. The crucial experimental condition involves blocking visual contact between the two individuals. If dolphins possessed a flexible language-like communication system, it should be a simple matter to signal ‘push the left one’ and succeed. Although initial experiments suggested this [ 64 ], more careful follow-up studies showed that these initial successes did not reflect anything language-like. When the roles were reversed (so that the former responder had to become the signaller), the pair totally failed. Furthermore, when the contingency between signal and response was changed, the dolphins had to be retrained from scratch and were not able to simply switch vocal signals to indicate the other action. The researchers concluded that the initial success was a result of trial-and-error learning where incidental sounds made by one animal, or vocal sounds produced whether or not the other animal was present, were used to solve the task [ 58 , 65 ]. Bastian, who led this research project concisely concluded ‘No evidence was found to support the supposition that the social signalling of dolphins is capable of the transfer of arbitrary environmental information’ (p. iii, [ 65 ]). Summarizing, dolphins have very sophisticated cognitive and learning abilities, revealing complex internal concepts, but their capacity to communicate those concepts via their species-typical signals is quite limited.

5. Concepts and communication in primates

My final examples come from two non-human primate species—vervet monkeys and chimpanzees—but similar examples could be provided for many other well-studied primates.

Vervets Chlorocebus pygerythrus (previously Cercopithecus aethiops ) are small common African monkeys, possessing a suite of different alarm calls that are typically emitted in the presence of different predators [ 67 , 68 ]. The vervet monkey alarm call system is frequently cited as a potential precursor to language [ 10 , 69 ]. However, the three different alarm calls produced to leopards, eagles and snakes in no way exhaust the concepts that vervets can represent. In addition to ‘standard’ primate concepts like individuality and dominance [ 70 ], vervets maintain complex spatial representations of their environment [ 71 ] and can mentally track the locations of hidden group members [ 72 ]. They can socially learn how to access food and rapidly absorb new social preferences about what to eat based on colour [ 73 ]. None of this cognitive sophistication is in any way detectable in their vocal communication system.

Turning finally to our nearest living relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos ( Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus ), there is abundant evidence that chimpanzees have highly developed cognitive abilities and can represent basic concepts like colour and shape, as well as abstract concepts including sameness, location, and sequence [ 27 , 74 , 75 ]. Chimpanzees also have social representations including individual identity, dominance and relationships (e.g. ‘child of’) and are capable of transitive inference [ 76 ]. With extensive training, very abstract concepts like number are within their cognitive reach [ 77 , 78 ]. They show at least the beginnings of theory of mind, in that they can represent what competitors do or do not see [ 79 ]. Their tool-using abilities are sophisticated and incorporate future planning [ 80 ]. When trained intensively with human communication systems, they can understand multi-word sentences and indicate an impressive variety of objects and events [ 81 , 82 ] and exhibit flexible cross-modal transfer of information without further training [ 83 ]. In general then, chimpanzees exhibit some of the most sophisticated cognitive abilities known among animals—unsurprising given their close biological relationship to humans.

By contrast, chimpanzee vocal communication is comparable to that seen in many other primates or mammals, with a small repertoire of 30-odd innate vocalizations [ 84 ] including food calls that differ for different food quality [ 85 , 86 ], screams and threats, and complex display calls like pant-hoots [ 87 ]. Chimpanzees are not known to have predator-specific alarm calls like vervets. Their gestural communication system is considerably richer, and perhaps more intentionally informative than their vocal communication [ 88 – 90 ]. But both their vocal and gestural communication skills pale in comparison to their rich and sophisticated cognitive abilities. Cognitive studies demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that chimpanzees possess many concepts that their species-typical communication systems cannot express (nor indeed do the utterances of ‘language trained’ chimpanzees come close to expressing the complexity of concepts like number, transitivity or tool use [ 82 , 91 ]). Thus, chimpanzees clearly possess and manipulate concepts that they are unable to communicate. Even the most exhaustive analysis of chimpanzee communication would vastly underestimate the complexity of their non-verbal conceptual world.

It is crucial not to conflate these communicative limitations with the false but frequently repeated claim that primates (or animals more generally) have no voluntary control over their vocalizations. A sizeable body of data clearly demonstrates that they do (cf. [ 92 ]). For example, in the wild, many species (including chickens and monkeys) exhibit ‘audience effects,’ producing vocalizations only when appropriate listeners are around [ 70 , 93 , 94 ], and chimpanzee screams and alarm vocalizations are clearly modulated by the presence and composition of the audience [ 95 , 96 ]. Several bird species produce ‘false’ alarm calls when no predator is present, frightening away competitors and then taking remaining food [ 97 , 98 ]. In an operant setting in the laboratory, numerous studies have demonstrated voluntary production (or inhibition) of vocalizations on command [ 97 , 98 ] in chimpanzees, other primates [ 99 , 100 ] and various other mammals (e.g. cats and dogs, [ 101 ]). Thus, despite a common misconception, animal vocalizations are not reflexive actions, performed inevitably upon the appearance of some external stimulus; but this fact does not imply that their vocalizations provide exhaustive access to their conceptual world.

6. Conclusion: discontinuities in signalling do not indicate cognitive discontinuities

I end by clarifying the key implication of this essay: when considering the evolution of human cognition, we will be fundamentally misled if we attribute to animals only those concepts they can communicate. Externalization of concepts is just one component of language, and another is to help structure our private internal thought [ 4 ]. Thus, we cannot accurately limit our estimation of what humans know to what they say . The same is true of animals, only more so. The flexibility of human language means that we can use it to represent virtually anything we can think (perhaps with considerable effort, in the case of visual, musical or highly abstract concepts). The same flexibility and expressivity is simply not present in animal communication systems. This limitation, rather than any fundamental non-existence of animal concepts, was surpassed by humans during language evolution. Thus, our (linguistic) ability to refer, not our basic ability to conceptually represent, must be explained if we hope to understand the neural and ultimately genetic basis of human language.

This is not to deny that externalized language gives humans a huge conceptual advantage over other species. We acquire many concepts via language that we have no direct access by personal experience, vastly enlarging our potential store of knowledge (some readers may never have personally seen an octopus, but most will nonetheless have some concept OCTOPUS). Blind people, thanks to language, have surprisingly rich conceptions of colour terms [ 102 ], and many abstract or scientific terms such as ‘electron’ or ‘truth’ have no sensory manifestations at all. My argument is not that animals have precisely the same concepts as humans (that would be absurd, because even individual humans do not share precisely the ‘same’ concepts, figure 1 ). My argument concerns the neural and cognitive machinery underlying the formation of mental representations, along with many of the cognitive processes that allow concepts to be formed based on sensory experience and combined at a basic level. These capabilities are shared across species and were therefore present before language evolved and provided the precursors of more complex human concepts.

In many circumstances, the study of animal communication can provide crucial insights into what animals know and remains an important part of comparative investigation of language evolution. But accepting the fundamental fact that animals know much more than they can express implies that the evolution of human language built upon a pre-existing conceptual apparatus much richer than that observable in animal communicative capabilities. It is therefore critical that future scholarly explorations of human language evolution take results from animal cognition research as crucial data for understanding the evolutionary path to human language. Even more crucial is a dedicated research programme to explore in detail animals' abilities to combine concepts. To the extent that they can do so in a flexible, hierarchical manner [ 103 , 104 ], I think we can see the germs of the recursive symbolic system that underlies human linguistic concepts.

Acknowledgements

This essay is dedicated to the fundamental contributions to the study of both animal cognition and communication made by Dorothy Cheney (1950–2018). The author thanks Gesche Westphal-Fitch, Barry Smith and two anonymous reviewers for comments on previous drafts, and Nadja Kavcik for her help with the figure.

Data accessibility

Competing interests.

The author declares that he has no competing interests.

Preparation of this paper was supported by Austrian Science Fund (FWF) DK Grant ‘Cognition & Communication’ (grant no. W1262-B29).

Animal Essay

500 Words Essay on Animal

Animals carry a lot of importance in our lives. They offer humans with food and many other things. For instance, we consume meat, eggs, dairy products. Further, we use animals as a pet too. They are of great help to handicaps. Thus, through the animal essay, we will take a look at these creatures and their importance.

Types of Animals

First of all, all kinds of living organisms which are eukaryotes and compose of numerous cells and can sexually reproduce are known as animals. All animals have a unique role to play in maintaining the balance of nature.

A lot of animal species exist in both, land and water. As a result, each of them has a purpose for their existence. The animals divide into specific groups in biology. Amphibians are those which can live on both, land and water.

Reptiles are cold-blooded animals which have scales on their body. Further, mammals are ones which give birth to their offspring in the womb and have mammary glands. Birds are animals whose forelimbs evolve into wings and their body is covered with feather.

They lay eggs to give birth. Fishes have fins and not limbs. They breathe through gills in water. Further, insects are mostly six-legged or more. Thus, these are the kinds of animals present on earth.

Importance of Animals

Animals play an essential role in human life and planet earth. Ever since an early time, humans have been using animals for their benefit. Earlier, they came in use for transportation purposes.

Further, they also come in use for food, hunting and protection. Humans use oxen for farming. Animals also come in use as companions to humans. For instance, dogs come in use to guide the physically challenged people as well as old people.

In research laboratories, animals come in use for drug testing. Rats and rabbits are mostly tested upon. These researches are useful in predicting any future diseases outbreaks. Thus, we can protect us from possible harm.

Astronomers also use animals to do their research. They also come in use for other purposes. Animals have use in various sports like racing, polo and more. In addition, they also have use in other fields.

They also come in use in recreational activities. For instance, there are circuses and then people also come door to door to display the tricks by animals to entertain children. Further, they also come in use for police forces like detection dogs.

Similarly, we also ride on them for a joyride. Horses, elephants, camels and more come in use for this purpose. Thus, they have a lot of importance in our lives.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of Animal Essay

Thus, animals play an important role on our planet earth and in human lives. Therefore, it is our duty as humans to protect animals for a better future. Otherwise, the human race will not be able to survive without the help of the other animals.

FAQ on Animal Essay

Question 1: Why are animals are important?

Answer 1: All animals play an important role in the ecosystem. Some of them help to bring out the nutrients from the cycle whereas the others help in decomposition, carbon, and nitrogen cycle. In other words, all kinds of animals, insects, and even microorganisms play a role in the ecosystem.

Question 2: How can we protect animals?

Answer 2: We can protect animals by adopting them. Further, one can also volunteer if one does not have the means to help. Moreover, donating to wildlife reserves can help. Most importantly, we must start buying responsibly to avoid companies which harm animals to make their products.

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Which class are you in.

• Travelling Essay
• Picnic Essay
• Our Country Essay
• My Parents Essay
• Essay on Favourite Personality
• Essay on Memorable Day of My Life
• Essay on Knowledge is Power
• Essay on Gurpurab
• Essay on My Favourite Season
• Essay on Types of Sports

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Download the App

• Essay On Importance Of Communication

Importance of Communication Essay

500+ words importance of communication essay.

For every human being, communication is one of the essential parts of our lives. People build relationships in their personal and professional lives based on communication. Effective communication works as a foundation for respect and trust to grow. It helps in better understanding a person and the context of the conversation. People always believe that their way of communication is better than others. To communicate effectively, individuals should understand the motion behind the said information. We know that communication is effortless, but miscommunication between two or more individuals sometimes leads to conflicts and distress. Building relationships at home, work, and social affairs will be easier if you know the right way to communicate effectively. It is required to have better communication skills such as non-verbal communication, listening and managing stress can improve the relationship between individuals.

Meaning of Communication

Communication is essential for all of us, whether humans or animals. Communication is a part of written and spoken language, and altogether it completes the communication process. Both use different languages to communicate because it’s hard to survive in this world without communication.

Good communication skills are all about exchanging ideas and thoughts to convey information. It is a two-way conversation that includes vocalisation as well as a gesture. One of the crucial purposes of communication is to express ideas, needs or thoughts, and one’s beliefs with clarity for a mutually accepted solution.

Communication skills cannot be underestimated. Before languages were invented, people communicated with their hand gestures, body language, etc. We all require better communication skills at every step of our life. Personal and professional life will get hampered if you lack practical communication.

Importance of Effective Communication

People understand the importance of communication, but sometimes they cannot communicate through communication. It happens due to a lack of better communication skills. Below, we have discussed a few ways to communicate effectively.

• Interruption: It becomes very annoying when someone disrupts you while talking. It looks pretty unethical to disrupt someone while talking constantly, and the conversation can take a different turn. So, while talking, let the other person complete their talk before you start talking.
• Listen patiently: Listen patiently when someone tries to make a healthy conversation. It is one of the ways to do effective communication, as it gives a clear understanding of what the person is trying to say.
• View your body language: Body language speaks about your personality. Some people make uncomfortable gestures through their body language. So, you should keep your body language friendly and warm rather than keeping it arrogant.
• Do not go over your point: Communication is all about expressing thoughts so that the other person can understand. It is not that you are trying to prove something correct and the other person incorrect. Some people try to win the conservation, which leads to struggles and arguments.
• Watch your words: Before telling someone something, make sure you know what you are saying. We often say things that we should not do out of anger or anxiety. Remember, once spoken, words can not be withdrawn. Thus, it is suggested that you do not say something that you can regret later.
• Practice: If there is a professional meeting where you need to communicate about your product or work, it is recommended to practise already. Practise in front of the mirror or with a friend only. Choose how your conversation will begin, all the points you cover, and how you will end it.

As many people may feel comfortable communicating, communication is an art developed through practice and evaluation; every good communicator passes through a process to learn communication and practice skills, review themselves, and decrease where they can be.

Communication is essential to share our thoughts and feelings to live a happy life. Better communication makes us feel better about everything surrounding us and makes us suffer less. So, it is necessary to learn the art of communication to put across one point well.

Therefore, communication is a vital aspect of our existence. Effective communication can be achieved by being mindful of different elements of communication. Using appropriate communication in appropriate settings is essential for effective communication.

From our BYJU’S website, students can also access CBSE Essays related to different topics. It will help students to get good marks in their exams.

Frequently asked Questions on the Importance of communication Essay

How important is communication.

Communication of ideas, and thoughts is an important skill to be acquired. Conveying things in an effective manner is necessary for both our personal and professional lives.

What are types of communication?

There are 4 main types of communication are verbal, non verbal, visual and written forms of communication.

What are the factors that act as a barrier for communication?

Language is obviously the biggest barrier for communication between peoples of the world. Then comes the physical barrier. Geographical separation hinders communication. There are other factors like the gender barrier, cultural differences that prevail in the society. Last but not the least, emotional barriers too hinder proper understanding between persons involved in communication.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Your Mobile number and Email id will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Request OTP on Voice Call

Post My Comment

• Share Share

Register with BYJU'S & Download Free PDFs

Register with byju's & watch live videos.

Counselling

EDITORIAL article

This article is part of the research topic.

Neurological Insights into Communication and Synchrony between others: What Animal and Human Group Communication can tell us.

Neurological Insights Into Communication and Synchrony Between Others: What Animal and Human Group Communication Can Tell Us Provisionally Accepted

• 1 University of Maryland, Baltimore County, United States
• 2 Emory University, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

One article, Neurophysiological and Emotional Influences on Team Communication and Metacognitive Cyber Situational Awareness During a Cyber Engineering Exercise, demonstrates advancements in neurological technology and how they contribute to the understanding of human communication. Researchers examine the realm of cyber operations, where human-tohuman communication plays a pivotal role in achieving shared situational awareness for effective decision-making. Utilizing the Orient, Locate, Bridge (OLB) model, researchers investigate the neural correlates of metacognitive cyber situational awareness among cyber cadets. Their findings underscore the influence of neurophysiological and emotional factors on team communication, revealing the importance of vagal tone in shaping metacognitive judgments and mood. This study provides essential insights into the cognitive processes underlying effective communication in cyber defense, and more broadly, to hierarchical communication. Together, these results pave the way for innovative approaches to recruitment, education, and training in this critical domain.A possible explanation for the relationship between vagal tone and communicative success in cyber operations is emotional state. Functional Graph Contrastive Learning of Hyperscanning EEG Reveals Emotional Contagion Evoked by Stereotype-Based Stressors shows how humans can transmit emotion to one another without being consciously aware. Authors show how emotional contagion pervades dyadic interactions, shaping the dynamics of collaborative tasks and influencing performance outcomes. This article also employed EEG-based hyperscanning to unravel the neural mechanisms underlying emotional contagion in the context of stereotypebased stressors. Through functional graph contrastive learning (fGCL), researchers suggest the impact of emotional contagion on participants' neural activity patterns, revealing its substantial role in modulating performance trajectories. This study contributes valuable insights into the neural underpinnings of emotional dynamics in dyads, enriching our understanding of social interactions in diverse contexts.Attention to not only one's emotional state, but one's physiological state, can impact communication and interpersonal synchrony, as shown in Autonomic Synchrony Induced by Hyperscanning Interoception During Interpersonal Synchronization Tasks. This article demonstrates that social interactions are inherently dynamic, characterized by reciprocal influences on emotional states and physiological rhythms. This work investigates the role of autonomic synchrony in dyadic interpersonal synchronization tasks, exploring the impact of interoceptive focus on physiological coherence. By employing hyperscanning techniques, researchers reveal higher synchrony between paired participants in heart rate variability (HRV), skin conductance level (SCL), and heart rate (HR) during tasks involving focused attention on one's own breathing. These findings highlight the intricate interplay between interoception and interpersonal synchrony, offering new avenues for studying psychophysiological coherence in real-time social interactions. This research also shows how human communication and synchrony can be seen not only though explicit communication and neurological activity, but also cardiovascular responses.Other research takes a more cellular approach, looking at mirror neuron systems (MNS; Bonini, 2017), which are essential in understanding the intentions and movements of others. In, Effects of Avatar Shape and Motion on Mirror Neuron System Activity, researchers explored the role of the MNS in perceiving humanness in avatars, shedding light on how avatar characteristics impact neural activity. Application of electroencephalogram (EEG) analysis demonstrated activation of the MNS in response to human-like avatar shapes and motions, highlighting the importance of considering both visual and kinematic cues in avatar design and interpreting the intentions of others through physical movement. These findings offer valuable insights for enhancing interavatar communication and fostering a sense of social presence in virtual environments. Further, they demonstrate how understanding human communication in humans is an automatic process that can extend beyond assessing other humans, even down to the neuronal level. In conclusion, the articles presented in this research topic offer a multifaceted exploration of nonverbal communication from neurological perspectives, spanning human and animal research domains. From cyber defense decision-making to avatar design in virtual environments, interpersonal synchrony in social interactions, emotional contagion in dyadic tasks, and autonomic synchrony to serotonergic modulation of vocal perception, these studies illuminate the diverse facets of non-verbal behavior and its neural underpinnings. By integrating insights from human and animal models, we can deepen our understanding of communication dynamics and pave the way for future advancements in understanding an innate human behavior.

Keywords: synchrony, Human communication, EEG, Vocal signaling, non-verbal communication

Received: 10 Apr 2024; Accepted: 15 Apr 2024.

Copyright: © 2024 Amey and Warren. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Dr. Rachel C. Amey, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, 21250, Maryland, United States

People also looked at