Chimpanzees and humans already share 98.8% of the same DNA — they might as well learn to share conversation, too.
New research has found that chimps send “rapid fire” gestures back and forth to one another, in the same cadence as people do, according to a new study published in the journal Current Biology.
“We found that the timing of chimpanzee gesture and human conversational turn-taking is similar and very fast, which suggests that similar evolutionary mechanisms are driving these social, communicative interactions,” said first study author Gal Badihi.
The researchers analyzed over 8,500 gestures made by the ape species in five areas of East Africa. They found that 14% of their communications involved gesturing between two individual chimpanzees.
Most exchanges were in two parts, but some extended up to seven different types of gesturing.
Researchers also observed similar timing to human conversational reaction at about 120 milliseconds in between engagements.
“We did see a little variation among different chimp communities, which again matches what we see in people where there are slight cultural variations in conversation pace,” added Badihi.
“Some cultures have slower or faster talkers.”
Chimpanzees in Uganda’s Sonso community were “slower” to respond by comparison, for example.
The shared traits could be traced back to shared ancestral mechanisms, according to the report.
“Human conversations may share similar evolutionary history or trajectories to the communication systems of other species suggesting that this type of communication is not unique to humans but more widespread in social animals,” said Badihi.
Still, there are plenty more questions to get to the bottom of, such as “when these conversational structures evolved, or why,” according to Hobaiter.
“To get at that question we need to explore communication in more distantly related species — so that we can work out if these are an ape-characteristic, or ones that we share with other highly social species, such as elephants or ravens.”
