title: Spontaneous synchronized tapping to an auditory rhythm in a chimpanzee.
abstract: Humans actively use behavioral synchrony such as dancing and singing when they intend to make affiliative relationships. Such advanced synchronous movement occurs even unconsciously when we hear rhythmically complex music. A foundation for this tendency may be an evolutionary adaptation for group living but evolutionary origins of human synchronous activity is unclear. Here we show the first evidence that a member of our closest living relatives, a chimpanzee, spontaneously synchronizes her movement with an auditory rhythm: After a training to tap illuminated keys on an electric keyboard, one chimpanzee spontaneously aligned her tapping with the sound when she heard an isochronous distractor sound. This result indicates that sensitivity to, and tendency toward synchronous movement with an auditory rhythm exist in chimpanzees, although humans may have expanded it to unique forms of auditory and visual communication during the course of human evolution.
authors.affiliation: Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University. hattori.yuko.3w@kyoto-u.ac.jp
authors.forename: Yuko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hattori
authors.forename: Masaki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tomonaga
authors.forename: Tetsuro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Matsuzawa
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000818:Animals; D001307:Auditory Perception; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity; D002679:Pan troglodytes / Q000523:psychology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance
references.citation: Curr Biol. 2009 May 26;19(10):831-6
references.pmid: 19409786
references.citation: Psychol Sci. 2009 Jan;20(1):1-5
references.pmid: 19152536
references.citation: Proc Biol Sci. 2004 Dec 7;271 Suppl 6:S468-70
references.pmid: 15801606
references.citation: Sci Rep. 2011;1:120
references.pmid: 22355637
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Dec 20;108(51):20661-5
references.pmid: 22143791
references.citation: Curr Biol. 2009 May 26;19(10):827-30
references.pmid: 19409790
references.citation: J Neurophysiol. 2009 Dec;102(6):3191-202
references.pmid: 19812296
references.citation: Psychon Bull Rev. 2005 Dec;12(6):969-92
references.pmid: 16615317
references.citation: Science. 2009 Aug 14;325(5942):880-3
references.pmid: 19679816
references.citation: Acta Psychol (Amst). 2006 Jan;121(1):81-107
references.pmid: 16098944
references.citation: Behav Processes. 2009 Sep;82(1):90-4
references.pmid: 19615618
references.citation: Dev Sci. 2004 Sep;7(4):437-42
references.pmid: 15484592
references.citation: Science. 2005 Jun 3;308(5727):1430
references.pmid: 15933193