Semantic information distinguishing individual predators in the alarm calls of Gunnison's prairie dogs
TL;DR
Foundational paper proving prairie dog alarm calls encode semantic information about specific predator types.
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This foundational paper demonstrated that prairie dog alarm calls contain semantic information about specific predator types. Different calls encode different threats - hawks, coyotes, humans - allowing receivers to respond appropriately to each. This was groundbreaking evidence that non-human animals could encode referential information in vocalizations, previously thought to be uniquely human.
Key Findings from Slobodchikoff et al. (1991)
- Prairie dogs produce acoustically distinct alarm calls for different predator types
- Calls for hawks, coyotes, and humans are discriminable by spectrographic analysis
- Receivers respond differently to playbacks of different predator alarm calls
- Semantic specificity in alarm calls was previously thought unique to primates
- Information encoding enables proportional defensive responses