Intentional Presentation of Objects in Cooperatively Breeding Arabian Babblers (Turdoides squamiceps)

Simone Pika,Yitzchak Ben Mocha

doi:10.3389/fevo.2019.00087

Abstract

The emergence of intentional communication and, furthermore, the intentional presentation of objects are important steps in the ontogeny of cooperative communication in humans. Intentional object presentation is an extremely rare form of communication evolutionarily. Research on comparable means of communication in nonhuman species may therefore shed light on distinct selection pressures that acted upon components of human communication. However, the functions and cognitive mechanisms that underlie object presentation in animals are poorly understood. Here, we addressed these issues by investigating object presentation in wild, cooperative breeding Arabian babblers (Aves: Turdoides squamiceps). Our results show that individuals present an object to a specific recipient. The recipient most often responds by approaching the signaler and the dyad then moves jointly to copulate at a hidden location. We provide evidence that object presentation by Arabian babblers: (i) is not a costly signal, as objects were not costly to acquire; (ii) birds do not trade food for sex, as the presentation of food was not more likely to result in copulation; and (iii) that presentations possess the hallmarks of first-order intentionality. These results show that intentional presentation of objects is not restricted to the primate linage and may suggest that the need to engage in cooperative interactions facilitates elaborate socio-cognitive performances.

Highlights

Animals use their body parts in manifold ways to communicate with each other (Bradbury and Vehrencamp, 1998)
We recorded a total of 73 object presentations, which were performed by eight alpha males (n = 58), two alpha females (n = 3), and six subordinate males (n = 12) from eleven social groups
The present study investigated the function of object presentations by Arabian babblers and whether their use qualifies as first-order intentional communication

Summary

Introduction

Animals use their body parts in manifold ways to communicate with each other (Bradbury and Vehrencamp, 1998). As early as 12 months of age human infants present objects to attract and share attention with an interlocutor to a specific locus (Bates et al, 1979) These communicative presentations of objects involve a two-tiered intentional structure: combining the intention to get Intentional Presentation of Objects in Arabian Babblers something done and the “referential” intention to draw the attention of the recipient to some third entity (Tomasello, 2006). This form of communication has been shown to play a pivotal role during the ontogeny of human cooperative communication by facilitating the learning of novel words (Dunham et al, 1993). Understanding comparable communicative signals in other animal species is crucial for being able to infer the selection pressures acting upon essential language components (Hauser et al, 2002)

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