LONDON: People may notice that their accents have changed albeit subtly when they spend sufficient time in a different country. Interestingly, this does not only happen to humans. It also occurs in chimpanzees.
Researchers have found that when groups of chimps combine, they have the tendency to adapt by imbibing new accents until they are all grunting the same way.
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It was previously believed that this ability to modify vocalizations in order to fit in with social groups was an exclusive human trait, but findings of the new study, which was published in the journal Current Biology on Thursday, Feb. 5, revealed otherwise.
“It’s the first time we’ve seen another primate species — not humans — change the structure of the call that they gave for a specific object by socially learning it,” said study researcher Katie Slocombe, a psychologist from the University of York.
For the new study, Slocombe and colleagues wanted to find out what would happen after two separate groups of adult chimps merged at the Edinburgh Zoo. Prior to the two groups moving together, chimps on both groups have their particular food grunts.
Three years after the two groups moved in together, the researchers observed that the acoustic structure of the food grunts used by the two groups converged as members of both groups began to know each other.
