Manual deixis in apes and humans

By David A. Leavens. 2004

108 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Pointing by apes is near-ubiquitous in captivity, yet rare in their natural habitats. This has implications for understanding both the ontogeny and heritability of pointing, conceived as a behavioral phenotype. The data suggest that the cognitive capacity for manual deixis was possessed by the last common ancestor of humans and the great apes. In this review, nonverbal reference is distinguished from symbolic reference. An operational definition of intentional communication is delineated, citing published or forthcoming examples for each of the defining criteria from studies of manual gestures in apes. Claims that chimpanzees do not point amongst themselves or do not gesture declaratively are refuted with published examples. Links between pointing and cognitive milestones in other domains relating means to ends are discussed. Finally, an evolutionary scenario of pointing as an adaptation to changes in hominid development is briefly sketched.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Genetics, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9ee36911bccd8ab01d5f13391d06a328cce85b57

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In Developmental and Educational Psychology

In Genetics

In Social Psychology

Citations in the corpus

How joint is the joint attention of apes and human infants (2013, background): “Leavens and colleagues (e.g., Leavens, 2004; Leavens & Racine, 2009; Leavens, Racine, & Hopkins, 2009) list numerous reports of what they say appear to be declarative points by apes.”