In Italy we are authentic masters, but there is no country where humans do not communicate to gestures, at least when needed. In the animal kingdom this ability is less widespread: only primates, and in particular our closest relatives, the great monkeys, are known for the use of a large repertoire of intentional gestures with which to communicate desires, intentions, and in general to obtain what they want from others. A new study, however, now adds a new species to the list: let’s talk about the elephants, also very skilled, and to their own way, to make themselves understood to gestures by their own conspecifics and also by human beings.
The largest brain among terrestrial mammals
The discovery comes from a research just published in the magazine Royal Society Open Science, and only confirms the very remarkable communication skills of these animals, which not surprisingly have the greatest brain between terrestrial mammals and a relationship between brain mass and body size (defined as a brousfalization quotient) comparable to that of chimpanzees.
It was already known, in fact, that the elephants are able to communicate with each other with a large number of sound calls and movements of the proboscis. And that use personalized calls – equivalent in many circumstances to real names – to refer to the different members of their pack. It was not clear, however, if their ability to communicate came to what scientists call “Goal-Directed intentionality”, that is, the ability to transmit a “cognitive objective”, that is, their own desire or need, to those who listen to us.
The experiment with trays full of apples
We do it every time we ask gestures to pass something, to open the door, or who communicate that we are hungry or thirsty, without using verbal language. Several experts believed they had seen similar behaviors in wild elephants, but to date a rigorous test was missing that could confirm it. To officially attribute this ability to an animal, it must be demonstrated that this uses certain gestures only in the presence of other animals that can see them, that the gestures continue to be carried out until he has achieved what he wants. And that it is also able to change the type of gestural signal, when it realizes that the one used is not giving the desired results.
To check if the elephants are able to, the authors of the study organized an experiment, involving some specimens of the Victoria Cascate National Park of the Zimbabwe. The animals were placed in front of two trays: one emptiness, and one full of apples. In front of them there was a human experimenter, who had access to both trays and could pass their apples, if instructed correctly. And in fact, all the specimens studied have used gestures to indicate the trams full of apples: 38 different gestures, made mainly with the trunk, implemented only when the human experimenter was present, and modified after a little attempts, when this did not understand the request.
What elephants communicate with gestures
If the experimenters pass to the elephants only a part of the desired fruits, these have shown that they become extremely creative with their gestures, coming to express something similar to frustration. For the authors of the study, it is a confirmation: elephants would be perfectly able to communicate using intentional gestures. The next step, therefore, will be to study its behavior in nature, to try to establish whether, and which, gestures use daily to transmit information between them.
Read the Sciences section of Toray.it