Current Topics in Primate Vocal Communication, Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1995

More than 25 years ago, the first major review of primate communication appeared (Altmann, 1967). Since then, information on the communicative abilities of primates increased rapidly, resulting, 15 years later, in the appearance of the first volume in which signaling systems were analyzed in a broader variety of primate groups within an evolutionary perspective (Snowdon, Brown and Petersen, 1982). Seven years later, the first volume dedicated solely to primate vocal communication appeared (Todt, Goedeking and Symmes, 1988) and another four years later a volume followed in which nonverbal vocal communication in non-human primates and human infants was compared (Papousek, Jurgens and Papousek, 1992). None of these volumes, however, provided information about current technical advances in the field of bioacoustics, especially in digital sound analyzing systems, which offer primatologists, anthropologists and linguists nowadays a variety of rapid methods for analyzing human speech and non-human primate vocalizations in a quantitative and comparative way. Choosing the right method is difficult if a synopsis of these tools is lacking. Furthermore, information was particularly lacking on the natural signaling systems of two important primate groups, the prosimians and the apes. Likewise, new and unexpected insights into the ontogeny and evolution of vocal communication were gained during the past few years by the use of highly sophisticated sound analysis and statistical techniques.

Technical Advances in the Study of Primate Vocal Signals: Some Analysis Methods that May Be Useful to Acoustical Primatologists; M. Owren, C. Linker. Artificial Neural Networks for Analysis and Recognition of Primate Vocal Communication; A. Zimmermann. Social and Ecological Determinants of Vocal Communication: Loud Calls in Nocturnal Prosimians: Structure, Evolution, and Ontogeny; E. Zimmerman. Vocal Ontogeny in Macaques and Marmosets: Convergent and Divergent Lines of Development; J.D. Newman. Vocal Ontogeny of the Squirrel Monkey Saimiri boliviensis peruviensis; M. Biben, D. Bernhards. Morphological and Neuronal Substrates for Vocal Communication: A Comparative Approach to the Nonhuman Primate Vocal Tract: Implications for Sound Production; M. Schön-Ybarra. Role of Auditory Cortex in the Perception of Vocalizations by Japanese Macaques; H. Heffner, R. Heffner. Amplitude Envelope Encoding as a Feature for Temporal Information Processing in the Auditory Cortex of Squirrel Monkeys; A. Bieser. Cognitive and Evolutionary Aspects: Representational Signaling in Nonhuman Primate Vocal Communication; H. Gouzoules, et al. Linguistic Capacity: An Ontogenetic Theory with Evolutionary Implications; J.L. Locke. What Primate Calls Can Tell Us about Human Evolution; P. Lieberman. 4 additional articles. Index.