Is there cultural transmission of vocal dialects in non-human primates?
Science / Life Sciences
Imagine traveling to a foreign country where you can’t understand the language. This barrier is not due to the content but to the difficulty in understanding the sounds made by people. With over 6,000 languages and dialects spoken worldwide, communication barriers are a common experience for human travelers since around 80% of people communicate effectively only in their native communities. This starkly contrasts other primates, where we assume that individuals typically understand each other’s vocalizations regardless of geographic origin. But are humans truly alone in this vocal diversity? Recent research suggests that marmosets, small monkeys found in the forests of Brazil, may also have culturally transmitted vocal dialects. This project aims to confirm this phenomenon.
