Researchers Decode Chimp Gestures

For the first time ever, a team of researchers have successfully decoded chimp gestures.

After observing some 80 wild chimpanzees in the Budongo Forest, Uganda, researchers at the University of St. Andrews looked into the 66 gestures that chimps use - from arm raises, ground slaps to foot stomps - and identified what the gestures actually mean.

The work was carried out by St Andrews primatologists Dr. Catherine Hobaiter and Professor Richard Byrne in the rainforest of Uganda. This study adds to the long-held belief that chimps, the closest living relative of humans, have a purpose while communicating with each other.  It has been for more than 30 years that chimps are known to communicate using gestures but no one found out as to what the chimps were trying to say.

Professor Byrne explained, "There is abundant evidence that chimpanzees and other apes gesture with purpose. Apes target their gestures to particular individuals, choosing appropriate gestures according to whether the other is looking or not; they stop gesturing when they get the result they want; and otherwise they keep going, trying out alternative gestures or other tactics altogether."

They initially used videos to record the communicative interactions. Using this, the team found out nearly 4500 instances of gesturing. They basically focused on the non-playful uses and also successfully identified meanings of most of them.

Some of the few meanings decoded included chimp taps. When a chimp taps another it means to say "stop that."  When they slap an object of a hand fling, it means move away and when they raise their arm they mean, "I want that or give me that."

Dr Hobaiter explained, "Just as with human words, some gestures have several senses, but importantly the meanings of chimpanzee gestures are the same irrespective of who uses them. Chimpanzees may use more than one gesture for the same purpose - especially in social negotiations, where the final outcome may be a matter of some give and take."

The study was documented in Current Biology.