Gorilla mothers use "baby talk" with children
gestures "baby talk" Mother gorillas use to communicate with their children, according to scientists.
The research team led by Eva Maria McClelland, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, studied, taken captive western lowland gorillas, observe and film the animals, how they interact.
Since the animals have a wide repertoire of gestures to communicate the team in the facial expressions and hand signals used in the game.
McClelland and his colleague Katja Liebal filmed 120 hours of footage of the gorillas at the zoo in Leipzig and Howletts and Port Lympne Wild Animal Parks in the UK.
The analysis of these recordings showed that, when playing with children, adult women of more tactile sign language, as used with other adults, who were "touched caressed, lightly beat" young people.
"The children were also more reps," the BBC quoted Dr. McClelland.
He described a maternal gesture, which the researchers call "hands-on".
"This is where mothers put the palm of your hand on top of the [child] head," says Dr. McClelland.
"This means 'stop,'" he said.
The researchers showed that the best communicators of non-human, chimpanzee. In the wild, animals use up to 66 different gestures, each with a different meaning.
Gorillas often use this gesture to each other, which probably means that an animal has "sufficient". But in the case of a child, the woman to repeat the action several times.
The researchers explain that maternal communication as "non-maternal voice '.
They say it helps babies, the repertoire of signs, which later used to build an adult to communicate with the rest of the group of gorillas.
"It also shows that older animals some awareness of the communication skills of babies have immature," said McClelland.
Professor Richard Byrne of the University of St Andrews, said he doubted that research sheds light on the evolution of "baby talk" human.
The researcher explained the importance of the way, speaking of adults, babies, describes it as "a natural, but very clever way to convey the details of how to build a complex grammar." But he added that since gorillas do not learn the language, which "have no need of that"
