Gesturing Chimpanzees Use Rules Similar To Human Communication

Chimpanzees’ gestural communication follows rules much like those of human language, with the most commonly used gestures taking a shorter amount of time and longer sequences being broken up into shorter gestures, according to findings published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. “Primate gestural communication is, of course, very different to human language, but our results show that these two systems are underpinned by the same mathematical principles,” said study co-author Raphaela Heesen.