Groundbreaking Study Finds Monkeys Use Names to Communicate

The ability to name others is a highly advanced cognitive function observed in social animals. Previously, this behavior was only known to exist in humans, dolphins, and elephants. Our closest evolutionary relatives, nonhuman primates, appeared to lack this ability altogether, the journal Science reported.

Now, a team of researchers from the Hebrew University has discovered that marmoset monkeys use specific vocal calls, called “phee-calls,” to name each other. This groundbreaking research, recently published in Science, suggests marmosets have advanced social communication skills akin to those seen in humans, potentially offering insights into the evolutionary development of human language.

To uncover this, the researchers, led by graduate student Guy Oren, recorded natural conversations between pairs of marmosets, as well as interactions between monkeys and a computer system. They found that these monkeys use their “phee-calls” to address specific individuals. Additionally, they found that the marmosets could discern when a call was directed at them and responded more accurately when it was.

“This discovery highlight the complexity of social communication among marmosets,” explains Dr. David Omer from the Safra Center for Brain Sciences (ELSC), who supervised the research. “These calls are not just used for self-localization, as previously thought— marmosets use these specific calls to label and address specific individuals.”

The study also revealed that family members within a marmoset group use similar vocal labels to address different individuals and employ similar sound features to code different names, resembling the use of names and dialects in humans. This learning appears to occur even among adult marmosets who are not related by blood, suggesting that they learn both vocal labels and dialect from other members of their family group.

The researchers believe that this vocal labeling may have evolved to help marmosets stay connected in their dense rainforest habitat, where visibility is often limited. By using these calls, they can maintain their social bonds and keep the group cohesive.

“Marmosets live in small monogamous family groups and take care of their young together, much like humans do,” says Omer. “These similarities suggest that they faced comparable evolutionary social challenges to our early pre-linguistic ancestors, which might have led them to develop similar communicating methods.”

This research provides new insights into how social communication and human language might have evolved. The ability of marmosets to label each other with specific calls suggests they have developed complex brain mechanisms, potentially analogous to those that eventually gave rise to language in humans.

The study opens up exciting avenues for further research into how our own communication abilities may have evolved and what we can learn from these social nonhuman primates.

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