Increasing our understanding of primate gestural communication can provide new insights into language evolution. A key question in primate communication is the association between the social relationships of primates and their repertoire of gestures. Such analyses can reveal how primates use their repertoire of gestural communication to maintain their networks of family and friends, much as humans use language to maintain their social networks. In this study we examined the association between the repertoire of gestures (overall, manual and bodily gestures, and gestures of different modalities) and social bonds (presence of reciprocated grooming), coordinated behaviors (travel, resting, co‐feeding), and the complexity of ecology (e.g. noise, illumination) and sociality (party size, audience), in wild East African chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii). A larger repertoire size of manual, visual gestures was associated with the presence of a relationship based on reciprocated grooming and increases in social complexity. A smaller repertoire of manual tactile gestures occurred when the relationship was based on reciprocated grooming. A smaller repertoire of bodily gestures occurred between partners who jointly traveled for longer. Whereas gesture repertoire size was associated with social complexity, complex ecology also influenced repertoire size. The evolution of a large repertoire of manual, visual gestures may have been a key factor that enabled larger social groups to emerge during evolution. Thus, the evolution of the larger brains in hominins may have co‐occurred with an increase in the cognitive complexity underpinning gestural communication and this, in turn, may have enabled hominins to live in more complex social groups.

中文翻译：

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社会和生态的复杂性与野生黑猩猩的手势库大小有关。

加深我们对灵长类动物手势交流的理解可以为语言发展提供新的见解。灵长类动物交​​流中的一个关键问题是灵长类动物的社会关系与其手势库之间的关联。这样的分析可以揭示灵长类如何利用他们的手势交流方式来维持他们的亲朋好友网络，就像人类使用语言来维持他们的社交网络一样。在这项研究中，我们研究了手势（整体手势，手动手势和身体手势以及不同方式的手势）与社会纽带（往复修饰的存在），协调行为（旅行，休息，共同进食）之间的关联。东非野生黑猩猩的生态（例如噪音，光照）和社交性（聚会人数，观众）的复杂性（潘氏穴居人schweinfurthii）。较大的手动视觉手势库与基于往复修饰的关系的存在和社会复杂性的增加相关。当该关系基于往复修饰时，发生了较小的手动触觉手势。一起旅行更长的伙伴之间发生的肢体姿态较小。尽管手势库的大小与社交复杂性相关，但是复杂的生态系统也影响库的大小。大量手动视觉手势的演变可能是促使较大的社会群体在进化过程中出现的关键因素。因此，人参中较大大脑的进化可能与手势沟通所基于的认知复杂性的增加同时发生，而这反过来，