title: Baboons communicate with their right hand.
abstract: Humans are mainly right-handed for many actions including gestures. This bias is strongly linked to a left cerebral hemispheric dominance for language functions. Whether similar lateralized systems for communicative behaviors are present in other animals is unclear. Here we report the first evidence of strong population-level right-handedness in 60 captive baboons for a species-specific communicative manual gesture. Our findings support the view that lateralization for language may have evolved from a gestural system of communication controlled by the left hemisphere.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Research Center in Psychology of Cognition, Language and Emotion, University of Provence, Aix-en-Provence, France.
authors.forename: Adrien
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Meguerditchian
authors.forename: Jacques
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vauclair
mesh_terms: D000819:Animal Communication; D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D005868:Gestures; D008297:Male; D048530:Papio anubis / Q000502:physiology*