What are you really saying?

Sometimes communicating with our peers can be a task, especially when they are someone we don’t know personally. Here at Agnes we all come from different places, we all have different backgrounds- but we find ourselves using the same sort of gestures when communicating. In many places, a shrug means that you are unsure of something but sometimes it can mean indifference or even display discontent. In other places, eye contact can be seen as the highest form of respect and in others, it is the highest form of disrespect.

In this study, the researcher examined the communication between orangutans through their gesturing. The researchers observed twenty- eight orangutans from three different European zoos. The researcher video recorded all social interactions of the orangutans; locomotion, foraging, and social play, for three months at each location. The potential gestures were coded by two researchers. to identify if a potential gesture was indeed a gesture used for study it had to be observed being used intentionally- meaning one orangutan had to use the gesture to signal another and receive a response, answer, or reaction. After the gestures were identified they were matched with an intended goal/ meaning. An example of this would be an orangutan walking, vocalizing and gesturing toward the direction the animal is walking- this intended meaning may be for the younger orangutan to follow.

The researchers categorized 1,581 potential gestures of those 698 gesture outcomes did not explicitly match their presumed goals, 344 received no reaction and 99 resulted in rejection – the recipient turned away or pushed the signaller away. 203 gesture tokens -15% of the total gestures recorded ended in active interaction outcomes that did not apparently match their intended goals.

Cartmill, E. A., & Byrne, R. W. (2010). Semantics of primate gestures: intentional meanings of orangutan gestures. Animal Cognition, 13(6), 793-804. doi:10.1007/s10071-010-0328-7