Primate Communication: Evolution

Primate vocal communication is one of our few links to understanding the evolution of human speech and its underlying physiological bases. Because the important parts of speech production and perception (the vocal tract and the brain) do not fossilize, our insights into the origins of human communication will occur primarily through an understanding of how related living species produce and perceive their species-typical vocalizations. Given that the brain is the primary organ of these behaviors, nonhuman primates are the only model systems through which we can directly monitor the activity of single neurons and neural ensembles that mediate vocal behavior.