Assessment of meaning and the detection of unreliable signals by vervet monkeys

Abstract

Free-ranging vervet monkeys, Cercopithecus aethiops, who had learned to ignore playbacks of one type of call by an unreliable signaller subsequently also ignored playback of an acoustically different call by the same individual if the calls had similar referents. Such transfer did not occur if either the identity of the signaller changed or if the two calls had different referents. After repeatedly being played an intergroup call in the absence of other groups, vervets also ignored an acoustically different intergroup call given by the same individual. The monkeys did not transfer habituation, however, if the new call was given by a different individual. In tests where the referents of two calls were different, the monkeys also failed to transfer habituation across call types. Vervet monkeys who had learned to ignore an unreliable leopard alarm call did not later ignore an eagle alarm call, even when the signaller remained the same. Results suggest that vervets, like humans, process information at a semantic, and not just an acoustic, level.