Republic of the Congo - July 22, 2024

In a groundbreaking study, researchers have uncovered striking similarities between chimpanzee and human conversational behaviors. The study, led by Catherine Hobaiter from the University of St Andrews and Gal Badihi, reveals that chimpanzees engage in rapid back-and-forth exchanges of gestures, akin to human conversations.

Human conversations are characterized by quick turn-taking, with responses occurring within about 200 milliseconds. The researchers, studying five wild chimpanzee communities in East Africa, observed over 8,500 gestures among 252 individuals. They found that chimpanzees exhibit similarly fast-paced interactions, with gestures and responses occurring in rapid succession, often within 120 milliseconds of each other.

"This study challenges the notion that rapid conversational turn-taking is uniquely human," explains Gal Badihi. "Chimpanzees demonstrate a universal timing in their communicative exchanges, with slight variations among different chimpanzee communities, analogous to cultural differences in human conversations."

The findings suggest that these communication patterns may have deep evolutionary roots shared between humans and chimpanzees. They highlight how non-verbal gestures facilitate coordinated interactions and manage social dynamics, much like spoken language does for humans.

Looking ahead, researchers aim to delve deeper into the evolutionary origins of these conversational structures across different species to understand their adaptive significance and universality in social animals.