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Studying Social Communication in Primates: From Ethology and Comparative Zoology to Social Primatology, Evolutionary Psychology, and Evolutionary Linguistics

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Book cover The Evolution of Social Communication in Primates

Part of the book series: Interdisciplinary Evolution Research ((IDER,volume 1))

Abstract

Research fields adhere to particular epistemic frameworks that outline the methodological rules of conduct on how to study and interpret primate behavior as both social and communicative. Since the onset of social communication studies, epistemic focus has shifted from behaviorist observations to an examination of the cognitive and neurological capacities that underlie the observed communicative behavior and subsequently, toward an investigation of the evolutionary units, levels, and mechanisms whereby social communication evolved. This volume brings together scholars from within these diverse fields who (1) investigate the historical and epistemic roots of the primate communication/human language divide; (2) identify and analyze the building blocks of social communication; (3) examine how primate social communication strategies are evolutionary precursors of human language; and (4) analyze how social communication differs from human language. In their chapters, the contributors explain the merits and pitfalls of their field-specific epistemic approaches. They compare them to other theoretical frameworks and they give guidelines on how theory formation on the origin and evolution of social communication in primates can be enhanced by allowing for epistemic plurality.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Portuguese Fund for Science and Technology (SFRH/BPD/89195/2012) as well as the American John Templeton Foundation (Grant ID 36288) for their support. We are grateful to Slawomir Wacewicz for proofreading the text for English orthography.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Applied Evolutionary Epistemology Lab, Centre for Philosophy of Science, Faculty of Science, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Nathalie Gontier & Marco Pina

Authors
  1. Nathalie Gontier
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  2. Marco Pina
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Correspondence to Nathalie Gontier .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Philosophy of Science, University of Lisbon AppEEL, Lisbon, Portugal

    Marco Pina

  2. Centre for Philosophy of Science, University of Lisbon AppEEL, Lisbon, Portugal

    Nathalie Gontier

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Gontier, N., Pina, M. (2014). Studying Social Communication in Primates: From Ethology and Comparative Zoology to Social Primatology, Evolutionary Psychology, and Evolutionary Linguistics. In: Pina, M., Gontier, N. (eds) The Evolution of Social Communication in Primates. Interdisciplinary Evolution Research, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02669-5_1

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