Kira Davis
Research Mentor: Thore Bergman
Mentor Department: Psychology, LSA
Author(s): Kira Davis, Rachel Blood
Session: Session 2 (10:00 AM – 10:50 AM)
Presentation Type: Poster 26
Abstract
Communication is built into the foundations of human societies, cultures, and innovations. Understanding how and why it developed can illuminate why humans have been so successful. White-faced capuchins (Cebus imitator) have a large encephalization quotient, complex social structures, an intricate vocal repertoire, and are only distantly related to humans, providing an opportunity to determine the underlying evolutionary forces that cause complex communication to emerge. By identifying when, who, and why vocalizations are made, we will be able to better understand the minds of capuchins and the benefits of communication. In order to investigate this, we observed 3 groups of white-faced capuchins in Taboga Forest Reserve of Costa Rica. We recorded vocalizations, documenting the context surrounding them. We cleaned these recordings using Avisoft-SASLab Pro and will analyze them using RStudio. Overall, we hope to discover whether capuchin monkeys respond differently to alarm calls based on who is calling and reacting, or if responses are reflexive, regardless of the context. This will help us to understand how important communications, like alarms to danger, are received, and thus illuminate how sociality and information change the effectiveness of vocalizations. If calls are not blindly trusted, it will guide our understanding of how communication signals are processed, indicating that communication is shaped by relationships and experiences, and not just innate mechanisms.
