Current topics in primate vocal communication

Rapid growth has occurred in the study of primate vocal communication during the past 15 years. Despite this growth persistent gaps in theoretical and empirical knowledge remain. For example, systematic investigations of the vocal behavior of prosimians and apes have lagged behind studies of the calling behavior of monkeys. In similar fashion, examinations of vocal ontogeny and evolution have received far less attention than inquiries into the structure and function of primate vocalizations. Finally, recent advances in digital signal processing have been overlooked and underutilized in favor of traditional analytic techniques based on analog sound spectrography. Given current gaps in understanding, the editors of Current Topics in Primate Vocal Communication organized symposia at the two most recent Congresses of the International Primatological Society. Their central goal was to review recent research related to four aspects of the study of primate vocal communication: advances in technical methods, social and ecological determinants, morphological and neural substrates, and cognition and evolution. Results of the symposium proceedings, along with a few invited papers, are published in this volume. Technical and empirical methods are ably summarized by Owren, who provides a timely overview of analytical procedures. This chapter should set a standard for the field and help primate bioacousticians to minimize some commonly made mistakes. Although the digital techniques discussed here will provide researchers new and powerful tools for the study of primate vocal behavior, it is important to note that measurements gleaned from these techniques will be of little value if they are gathered in a theoretical vacuum and interpreted within inappropriate analytic and statistical frameworks. Two successive papers by Zimmerman are reviews of the disparate topics of neural nets and prosimian primate vocal behavior. The