Recognizing that two elements within a sequence of variable length depend on each other is a key ability in understanding the structure of language and music. Perception of such interdependencies has previously been documented in chimpanzees in the visual domain and in human infants and common squirrel monkeys with auditory playback experiments, but it remains unclear whether it typifies primates in general. Here, we investigated the ability of common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) to recognize and respond to such dependencies. We tested subjects in a familiarization-discrimination playback experiment using stimuli composed of pure tones that either conformed or did not conform to a grammatical rule. After familiarization to sequences with dependencies, marmosets spontaneously discriminated between sequences containing and lacking dependencies (‘consistent’ and ‘inconsistent’, respectively), independent of stimulus length. Marmosets looked more often to the sound source when hearing sequences consistent with the familiarization stimuli, as previously found in human infants. Crucially, looks were coded automatically by computer software, avoiding human bias. Our results support the hypothesis that the ability to perceive dependencies at variable distances was already present in the common ancestor of all anthropoid primates (Simiiformes).

中文翻译：

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普通狨猴对人工语法中可变距离的简单依赖关系很敏感

认识到可变长度序列中的两个元素相互依赖是理解语言和音乐结构的关键能力。这种相互依赖性的感知此前已在黑猩猩的视觉领域、人类婴儿和普通松鼠猴的听觉回放实验中得到记录，但目前尚不清楚它是否代表灵长类动物。在这里，我们研究了常见狨猴（Callithrix jacchus）识别和响应此类依赖性的能力。我们在熟悉辨别回放实验中使用由符合或不符合语法规则的纯音组成的刺激来测试受试者。在熟悉具有依赖性的序列后，狨猴自发地区分包含和缺乏依赖性的序列（分别为“一致”和“不一致”），与刺激长度无关。当听到与熟悉刺激一致的序列时，狨猴会更频繁地看向声源，就像之前在人类婴儿中发现的那样。至关重要的是，外观是由计算机软件自动编码的，避免了人为偏见。我们的结果支持这样的假设：所有类人灵长类动物（拟猿形目）的共同祖先都已经具备了感知不同距离依赖性的能力。