LINGUAE-animals - Animal Linguistics Seminar
LINGUAE; LSCP, CNRS; Earth Species Project
LINGUAE, Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS
LINGUAE, Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS
Embedded Files
FORMAT
FORMAT
Following a successful trial session in July 2025, we will organize an online seminar on animal linguistics, entirely on Zoom, open world-wide:
1 hour including questions
followed by 15 minutes of individual Q&A (optional, for whoever wants to stay)
Following a successful trial session in July 2025, we will organize an online seminar on animal linguistics, entirely on Zoom, open world-wide:
1 hour including questions
followed by 15 minutes of individual Q&A (optional, for whoever wants to stay)
Disclaimer: Topics are skewed towards our group's interest, and some sessions might involve presentations by our team's members.
Organizers' emails
Organizers' emails
linguae.paris@gmail.com philippe.schlenker@gmail.com
NEXT SESSION: Wednesday, March 25, 2026, 17:00-18:00+ Paris time
NEXT SESSION: Wednesday, March 25, 2026, 17:00-18:00+ Paris time
To find the corresponding time where you live, use for instance this website.
TITLE: Leveraging AI-powered interactive playbacks to decipher rules of communication in zebra finches
TITLE: Leveraging AI-powered interactive playbacks to decipher rules of communication in zebra finches
ABSTRACT: Vocal interactions are fundamental for social functioning across animals, including humans. The diverse rules underlying these exchanges remain largely unknown, and emerging AI technologies offer promising avenues for investigation. We used computational tools to collect and analyze >1,000 hours of vocal interactions between female zebra finches and discovered that their interactions were characterized by correlated call production and structure, rapid acoustic modulation, and response selectivity. To test these interaction rules, we developed a generative audio large language model (ZF-AIM: Acoustic Interaction Model) that engaged in real-time vocal exchanges with birds. When birds interacted with ZF-AIM, their vocal production and flexibility recapitulated key naturalistic features, which did not happen with non-interactive playbacks. Targeted ablations of ZF-AIM revealed that call timing and structure differentially contribute to natural vocal interactions. Using these AI-animal interactions, we demonstrate how AI can be leveraged to reveal fundamental rules underlying animal communication.
ZOOM LINK: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87423090182?pwd=8qe7KozEUc2bJcPyrq36Yh9a2Afkeq.1
ZOOM LINK: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87423090182?pwd=8qe7KozEUc2bJcPyrq36Yh9a2Afkeq.1
Password: 813134
Note: If there are unexpected technical problems (e.g. malfunctioning Zoom link), we will (i) provide corrected information on this page, and (ii) contact you by email if you have registered.
MAILING LIST AND FEEDBACK
MAILING LIST AND FEEDBACK
You can provide feedback about the seminar here.
ONLINE INTERACTION
ONLINE INTERACTION
-Questions should be asked directly rather than through the chat unless technical problems get in the way.
-The speaker will stay for 15 minutes for individual questions after the talk.
-We will record sessions. But to ensure that this does not get in the way of online interactions, we will edit questions out if we ever make the video public (as opposed to just sharing the video on a person-by-person basis).
LATER SESSION: Wednesday, April 15, 2026, 17:00-18:00+ Paris time
LATER SESSION: Wednesday, April 15, 2026, 17:00-18:00+ Paris time
TITLE: Dolphin communication: Past, present, and future research directions
TITLE: Dolphin communication: Past, present, and future research directions
ABSTRACT: The idea that dolphins communicate with a complex form of language has been entrenched in our culture since the days of the TV show “Flipper.” I will discuss how this idea originated, and its continuing impact, by giving a brief history of the study of dolphin communication. I will then discuss our current state of knowledge, including examples of recent research, focusing particularly on structure and function of individually distinctive signature whistles and less well-understood non-signature whistles. I will describe current avenues of research, including playback experiments, tag studies, and a project using acoustic monitoring to develop an alert system for dolphin mass stranding events. I will also discuss future directions including the use of artificial intelligence to detect and classify whistles.
ABSTRACT: The idea that dolphins communicate with a complex form of language has been entrenched in our culture since the days of the TV show “Flipper.” I will discuss how this idea originated, and its continuing impact, by giving a brief history of the study of dolphin communication. I will then discuss our current state of knowledge, including examples of recent research, focusing particularly on structure and function of individually distinctive signature whistles and less well-understood non-signature whistles. I will describe current avenues of research, including playback experiments, tag studies, and a project using acoustic monitoring to develop an alert system for dolphin mass stranding events. I will also discuss future directions including the use of artificial intelligence to detect and classify whistles.
LATER SESSION: Wednesday, May 13, 2026, 17:00-18:00+ Paris time
LATER SESSION: Wednesday, May 13, 2026, 17:00-18:00+ Paris time
LATER SESSION: Wednesday, June 10, 2026, 17:00-18:00+ Paris time
LATER SESSION: Wednesday, June 10, 2026, 17:00-18:00+ Paris time
PREVIOUS SESSION: Wednesday, January 28, 2026, 17:00-18:00+ Paris time
PREVIOUS SESSION: Wednesday, January 28, 2026, 17:00-18:00+ Paris time
TITLE: Bee talk - Communication in an unpredictable world
TITLE: Bee talk - Communication in an unpredictable world
ABSTRACT: Communication is a fundamental feature of animal societies and helps their members to solve the challenges they encounter, from exploiting food sources to fighting enemies or finding a new home. Eusocial bees inhabit a wide range of environments and they have evolved a multitude of communication signals that help them exploit resources in their environment efficiently. I highlight recent advances in our understanding of bee communication strategies and discuss how variation in social biology, such as colony size or nesting habits, and ecological conditions are important drivers of variation in communication strategies. Anthropogenic factors, such as habitat conversion, climate change, or the use of agrochemicals, are changing the world bees inhabit, and it is becoming clear that this affects communication both directly and indirectly, for example by affecting food source availability, social interactions among nestmates, and cognitive functions. Whether and how bees adapt their foraging and communication strategies to these changes represents a new frontier in bee behavioral and conservation research.
ABSTRACT: Communication is a fundamental feature of animal societies and helps their members to solve the challenges they encounter, from exploiting food sources to fighting enemies or finding a new home. Eusocial bees inhabit a wide range of environments and they have evolved a multitude of communication signals that help them exploit resources in their environment efficiently. I highlight recent advances in our understanding of bee communication strategies and discuss how variation in social biology, such as colony size or nesting habits, and ecological conditions are important drivers of variation in communication strategies. Anthropogenic factors, such as habitat conversion, climate change, or the use of agrochemicals, are changing the world bees inhabit, and it is becoming clear that this affects communication both directly and indirectly, for example by affecting food source availability, social interactions among nestmates, and cognitive functions. Whether and how bees adapt their foraging and communication strategies to these changes represents a new frontier in bee behavioral and conservation research.
PREVIOUS SESSION: Wednesday, November 26, 2025, 17:00-18:00+ Paris time
PREVIOUS SESSION: Wednesday, November 26, 2025, 17:00-18:00+ Paris time
TITLE: Chimpanzee Vocal Utterances: Flexible and combinatorial with protracted development
TITLE: Chimpanzee Vocal Utterances: Flexible and combinatorial with protracted development
ABSTRACT: Only one natural communication system is considered combinatorially complex with respect to mapping complex structure to complex meaning. This is human language. With a limited sound set, we combine words into utterances, generating endless new and relational meanings. Most animals have a limited sound set, and each species produces few multi-signal utterances in which the meaning shifts compared to the composing signals. However, recent studies delving into vocal sequence production at the scale of the entire vocal repertoire suggest animal vocal combinatorial capacities have been substantially underestimated, particularly in one of our closest living relatives, the chimpanzee. Chimpanzees present a relatively fixed and limited vocal repertoire of single calls but demonstrate highly flexible abilities to combine calls, such that most call types combine with most others. Vocal sequences show ordering and recombinatorial properties. Like humans, but unlike African monkeys, ontogenetic development is protracted, with utterance length and diversity dramatically increasing until 10 years of age. Such a developmental trajectory, along with the population differences documented in sequence structure, is suggestive of social learning capacities. Vocal sequences fit patterns predictive of encoded meaning. Whereas, species that combine calls typically generate few combinations, chimpanzees flexibly emit vocal combinations which show compositional-like structures, such that calls combined into utterances may disambiguate, add or generate new meanings compared to the composing calls. Taken together, this new research challenges previous assumptions that great ape vocal capacities are limited and innate, and rather suggests a surprising system that may flexibly encode complex meaning within utterances. Whether this is homologous or convergent with human language remains an open question.
ABSTRACT: Only one natural communication system is considered combinatorially complex with respect to mapping complex structure to complex meaning. This is human language. With a limited sound set, we combine words into utterances, generating endless new and relational meanings. Most animals have a limited sound set, and each species produces few multi-signal utterances in which the meaning shifts compared to the composing signals. However, recent studies delving into vocal sequence production at the scale of the entire vocal repertoire suggest animal vocal combinatorial capacities have been substantially underestimated, particularly in one of our closest living relatives, the chimpanzee. Chimpanzees present a relatively fixed and limited vocal repertoire of single calls but demonstrate highly flexible abilities to combine calls, such that most call types combine with most others. Vocal sequences show ordering and recombinatorial properties. Like humans, but unlike African monkeys, ontogenetic development is protracted, with utterance length and diversity dramatically increasing until 10 years of age. Such a developmental trajectory, along with the population differences documented in sequence structure, is suggestive of social learning capacities. Vocal sequences fit patterns predictive of encoded meaning. Whereas, species that combine calls typically generate few combinations, chimpanzees flexibly emit vocal combinations which show compositional-like structures, such that calls combined into utterances may disambiguate, add or generate new meanings compared to the composing calls. Taken together, this new research challenges previous assumptions that great ape vocal capacities are limited and innate, and rather suggests a surprising system that may flexibly encode complex meaning within utterances. Whether this is homologous or convergent with human language remains an open question.
PREVIOUS SESSION: Wednesday, September 24, 2025, 17:00-18:00+ Paris time
PREVIOUS SESSION: Wednesday, September 24, 2025, 17:00-18:00+ Paris time
TITLE: The study of compositional syntax in Parids: a comparative perspective
TITLE: The study of compositional syntax in Parids: a comparative perspective
ABSTRACT: Tits and chickadees are currently the focus of several experimental studies investigating the potential presence of non-trivial compositionality in birds’ calls. The most compelling evidence comes from research on mobbing calls of Japanese tits, which may involve a combination of an alert (F call) and a recruitment call (D call), arranged in a specific sequence (F then D). One approach to exploring this question is through comparative research, examining what is known about other species within the Paridae family. In this presentation, I will review current knowledge—and highlight key gaps—regarding the presence and potential meaning of the FD call in Parids, with particular emphasis on 1) its phylogenetic origins and 2) other experiments conducted on phylogenetically close species of the Japanese tit.
ABSTRACT: Tits and chickadees are currently the focus of several experimental studies investigating the potential presence of non-trivial compositionality in birds’ calls. The most compelling evidence comes from research on mobbing calls of Japanese tits, which may involve a combination of an alert (F call) and a recruitment call (D call), arranged in a specific sequence (F then D). One approach to exploring this question is through comparative research, examining what is known about other species within the Paridae family. In this presentation, I will review current knowledge—and highlight key gaps—regarding the presence and potential meaning of the FD call in Parids, with particular emphasis on 1) its phylogenetic origins and 2) other experiments conducted on phylogenetically close species of the Japanese tit.
PREVIOUS SESSION: Tuesday, July 22, 2025, 17:00-18:00+ Paris
PREVIOUS SESSION: Tuesday, July 22, 2025, 17:00-18:00+ Paris
TITLE: Alarm call sequences in olive colobus: a primate grammar enabling incremental processing
TITLE: Alarm call sequences in olive colobus: a primate grammar enabling incremental processing
ABSTRACT: Characterizing the structure and function of animal communication systems provides insights into the cognitive and evolutionary processes shaping signal complexity. One key question is whether and how call sequences allow potential listeners to make predictions about the call-eliciting referents. In this talk, I will present findings from several years of field experiments on wild olive colobus monkeys in West Africa, investigating whether their call sequences contained properties that enabled predictive processing. I will begin by characterizing their vocal repertoire and outlining the combinatorial rules they use to produce call sequences. Using information-theoretic approaches, I will then show how I uncovered a simple primate grammar in which early sequence positions reliably signal urgency, while later calls provide increasing referential detail about the nature of the threat. I will argue that this structure enables incremental interpretation of vocal input, allowing listeners to update predictions as sequences unfold. These findings indicate that animal communication systems may possess features adapted for predictive, incremental processing, suggesting evolutionary roots older than language.
ABSTRACT: Characterizing the structure and function of animal communication systems provides insights into the cognitive and evolutionary processes shaping signal complexity. One key question is whether and how call sequences allow potential listeners to make predictions about the call-eliciting referents. In this talk, I will present findings from several years of field experiments on wild olive colobus monkeys in West Africa, investigating whether their call sequences contained properties that enabled predictive processing. I will begin by characterizing their vocal repertoire and outlining the combinatorial rules they use to produce call sequences. Using information-theoretic approaches, I will then show how I uncovered a simple primate grammar in which early sequence positions reliably signal urgency, while later calls provide increasing referential detail about the nature of the threat. I will argue that this structure enables incremental interpretation of vocal input, allowing listeners to update predictions as sequences unfold. These findings indicate that animal communication systems may possess features adapted for predictive, incremental processing, suggesting evolutionary roots older than language.
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