A recent study published in Current Biology has discovered that wild chimpanzees engage in rapid, tu -taking conversations much like humans. Conducted by Professor Cat Hobaiter and her team from the University of St Andrews, the research involved detailed analysis of thousands of communication instances among five communities of wild chimpanzees in Uganda and Tanzania.

The study found that chimpanzees, using mostly gestures and facial expressions, took 'fast-paced tu s' to exchange information, waiting only a fraction of a second before responding.

This quick tu -taking, a hallmark of human conversation, typically involves a 200-millisecond gap between tu s.

In contrast, human cultural variations show Japanese speakers averaging a 7-millisecond response time and Danish speakers around 470 milliseconds.

Chimpanzee conversation timings had a broader range.

They occasionally interrupted each other up to 1,600 milliseconds before a gesture was finished and sometimes took as long as 8,600 milliseconds to respond.

This variability might stem from the natural settings in which the chimps communicated, allowing for a wider range of behaviors.

The researchers have recorded and translated over 8,000 gestures from more than 250 individual chimpanzees.

Lead researcher Dr. Gal Badihi noted that gestures help chimpanzees avoid conflict and coordinate actions, such as sharing food or agreeing on grooming spots.

The study's findings highlight deep evolutionary similarities between human and chimpanzee communication. Future research into other primate species could further illuminate the evolution of fast tu -taking in conversations, offering a more comprehensive understanding of our conversational rules.



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