Signal like you mean it: New study shows orangutan gestures carry specific intentional meanings

Thursday, June 17, 2010 - 08:30 in Psychology & Sociology

Great ape gestures have intentional meaning and are made with the expectation of specific behavioral responses, according to Erica Cartmill and Richard Byrne from the University of St. Andrews in the UK. The study of meaning in animal communication takes a significant step forward with the authors' new systematic approach to assessing intentional meaning in the gestural communication of non-humans, applied here to a group of orangutan gestures. Their work is published in Springer's journal Animal Cognition.

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