from Part I - Communication and Language
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2021
This chapter provides a broad overview of terminology and concepts in the study of animal communication. First, we focus on the evolutionary origins or phylogenetic causes of communicative signals. We address how communication systems can arise under several circumstances by increasing the reproductive success of both senders and receivers of signals. We summarize terminology describing what is communicated (self-reporting and other-reporting), how it is communicated (different modalities) and to whom it is communicated (conspecifics, heterospecifics). We further discuss how signal design is influenced by the risk of deception. The debate between the information and manipulation perspective of animal communication is briefly outlined. The second part of the chapter focuses on proximate aspects of animal communication. We describe signal acquisition in animals through ultimate mechanisms (biological inheritance, phylogenetic ritualization) and proximate mechanisms (ontogenetic ritualization, cultural learning) with a particular focus on learning. We further discuss signal selection, i.e., to what degree some animals have flexible control over signals and how they adjust them according to the recipient. Last, we discuss new directions and open questions in the study of animal communication, i.e., considerations of compositionality and multimodality, turn-taking, repertoire acquisition and development, flexibility and memory, and the problem of using a one-size-fits-all approach for understanding animal communication systems.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.