Le pointage controversé des singes : éléments empiriques chez le babouin olive (Papio anubis)

Abstract

Pointing gestures have been intensively studied by psychologists in both human and non-human primates. Research usually focusses on the emergence of pointing during ontogeny and phylogeny because infants develop pointing before speaking and non-human primates use pointing or “point-like gestures” while they do not (yet) speak. However, pointing in non-humans remains controversial. In this regard, Tomasello (2006) wrote “Why don’t apes point?”, putting forward that non-human pointing may not encapsulate similar functional and cognitive properties as do human pointing. However, empirical studies on non-human primates’ gestural communication have led to remarkable results that put this claim for human uniqueness back into question. I will base the present contribution on a series of empirical studies conducted on olive baboons (Papio anubis) to illustrate this issue of pointing gestures in monkeys. I will emphasize the communicative function and intentional properties of such gestures, as well as the cognitive skills implemented for their use. These studies show that monkeys flexibly tailor their gestural communication to the attentional state of their audience, and show persistency, targeted attention, and skills for elaborating their communicative means. However, the findings centered on the acquisition processes stress the importance of the context in which gesturing develops; only monkeys that learn to gesture towards an attentive and responsive human eventually develop skills for intentional communication closely similar to ours. These results are discussed in terms of operational criteria that may be relevant to the study of intentional communication, and in relation to the conceptual postures of lean and rich interpretations in comparative psychology.