EXCEED THE SPACE PROVIDED. Cooperatively-breeding marmoset and tamarin monkeys have a social organization and infant care system similar to many human families, and they have an extensive, well-documented vocal communication system. Field observations and experiments with captive monkeys will answer three broad questions: 1.What developmental processes lead to competent adult communication? We study how tamarins acquire competence in production, comprehension and appropriate use of communication signals through paradigms that reliably elicit different vocalizations in adults. We will study babbling behavior in marmoset vocal development and whether babbling is important for adult competence. We will study adult vocal responses to alarming situations and predators in wild pygmy marmosets as well as development of responses of young monkeys to situations that elicit mobbing or alarm responses in wild marmosets. 2. Since cooperation among group members is essential for infant survival, is there also social transmission of information among group members? Can tamarins communicate about unpalatable foods, about novel, palatable foods, and novel food processing methods and novel locations of food? 3. What cues are used for individual and kin recognition and is there cross-modal perception of familiar individuals? We will examine response to auditory, olfactory, and visual stimuli from familiar individuals (a) currently present in the same group, or (b) living in the same colony room or (c) having previously HVfed together some months or years previously will see if there is a long term memory for familiar individuals. We then examine whether monkeys presented with a cue of a familiar individual hi one modality can identify that individualusing another modality. Together these studies should provide a nonhuman primate model for social influences on development of communication and learning in human families. PERFORMANCE SITE ========================================Section End===========================================
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