Dear All, This Wednesday (4pm) we have a seminar led by Matthias Allritz (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology) entitled "Captive great apes follow human pointing gestures" - abstract below. The meeting will be held online: please find a link to the meeting below. Pointing gestures are among the most fundamental acts of human communication. Whether and which nonhuman animals can comprehend cooperative, declarative gestures such as human pointing has been the subject of 30 years of controversial debate, with implications for theories of how potentially human-unique forms of communication evolved. I will present the results of a study that systematically varied both the amount of referentiality (here: deictic movement elements) and ostension (here: attention getters that highlight that communication is happening) in pointing gestures shown to a large sample of great apes (N = 39) across five conditions. Unlike in many prior studies, great apes followed the human points successfully; and yet, their performance improved only marginally when gestures were maximally ostensive or referential. These results support a nuanced re-evaluation of great apes’ abilities: great apes, even those not raised by humans, follow human pointing. At the same time, their success is unlikely to be driven by actual comprehension of cooperative, communicative intention. Link to the meeting: BERG research seminars | Meeting-Join | Microsoft Teams<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fteams.microsoft.com%2Fmeet%2F3816460052135%3Fp%3DxsEIefROgXSXlZHxc0&data=05%7C02%7Calejandro.sanchezamaro%40stir.ac.uk%7C1d41b35450fb453d81c108de88b5c931%7C4e8d09f7cc794ccb9149a4238dd17422%7C0%7C0%7C639098511572364324%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=lDade6ECR8DUoE6CmzlZ3lBNlHVUeGKdnHxOZAQJ0yU%3D&reserved=0<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fteams.microsoft.com%2Fmeet%2F3816460052135%3Fp%3DxsEIefROgXSXlZHxc0&data=05%7C02%7Calejandro.sanchezamaro%40stir.ac.uk%7C1d41b35450fb453d81c108de88b5c931%7C4e8d09f7cc794ccb9149a4238dd17422%7C0%7C0%7C639098511572400428%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=oEjJGM1KGME7wTLUokOXRQMWEoWvPb6RoI7yYEhQU7s%3D&reserved=0<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fteams.microsoft.com%2Fmeet%2F3816460052135%3Fp%3DxsEIefROgXSXlZHxc0&data=05%7C02%7Calejandro.sanchezamaro%40stir.ac.uk%7C1d41b35450fb453d81c108de88b5c931%7C4e8d09f7cc794ccb9149a4238dd17422%7C0%7C0%7C639098511572423884%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=hRpBy%2FRmyetDzlXbsTLnjQITrZEDvtWQTacPdp0YLfs%3D&reserved=0<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fteams.microsoft.com%2Fmeet%2F3816460052135%3Fp%3DxsEIefROgXSXlZHxc0&data=05%7C02%7Calejandro.sanchezamaro%40stir.ac.uk%7C1d41b35450fb453d81c108de88b5c931%7C4e8d09f7cc794ccb9149a4238dd17422%7C0%7C0%7C639098511572442794%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=xgwYIdhkN6q4yUEaN3apqWNMa%2FUWSBnfhAhNMDLQUHs%3D&reserved=0<https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/3816460052135?p=xsEIefROgXSXlZHxc0>>>>> Best Alex ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dr. Alejandro Sanchez-Amaro Lecturer in Psychology Cottrell Building Room 3B144c, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences University of Stirling @ Colleagues and Students: Please let me know of any EDI (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) -related issues that you would like me to bring to the attention of our Division's EDI Committee. [cid:953913d0-91cd-4b2c-89cb-69ef53df7477]<https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/user/2a25868e07e14f2d87f6b0b660fce268@stir.ac.uk?anonymous&ep=signature> Book time to meet with me<https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/user/2a25868e07e14f2d87f6b0b660fce268@stir.ac.uk?anonymous&ep=signature> ________________________________ Scotland’s University for Sporting Excellence The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159
