Elephants used distinct gesture types to
communicate that they want apples. Credit: Royal Society Open Science (2025) . DOI: 10.1098/rsos.242203
Humans
have long mastered the art of expressing their goals and needs through both
language and gestures. A similar behavior is also observed in non-human
primates, who use complex gestures to convey what they want, but does the use
of deliberate gestures extend beyond primates to other members of the animal
kingdom?
A recent study provided the first-ever evidence that,
in the presence of a visually attentive audience, elephants are capable of
using a wide range of gestures to convey their desires.
The findings were published in Royal Society Open Science.
To test whether elephants intentionally
gesture to communicate their goals,
the researchers presented 17 semi-captive African Savannah elephants in
Zimbabwe with two trays: one containing six apples (the desired item) and the
other empty (the non-desired item).
Their attempts to communicate with the
experimenters were then recorded across three different outcomes. The first
scenario was when they successfully communicated, and the experimenter gave the
elephant all six apples. The second was when their goals were not met, and they
were given the empty tray. The third was when their goals were partially met,
and they received only one apple from
the tray.
During this entire process, it was
observed that elephants displayed clear goal-directed intentionality, as their
gestures were directed only towards an attentive human or the object they
desired, never towards an irrelevant object.
When their goals were not being met, the elephants got creative and came up with new gestures to convey their message instead of repeating the same actions.
Intentionality
of communication is seen as a factor that distinguishes human language from
other forms of animal communication. Our words and gestures are directed
towards someone to achieve a certain goal, which can be as simple as saying
hello to more complex situations, such as negotiating rent.
Scientists often categorize
intentionality into different levels of complexity. The simplest form is
zero-order intentionality, referring to reactions produced in response to
stimuli such as pain or touch. The next level is first-order, or goal-directed intentionality,
where communication is used deliberately to influence someone's behavior. The
most complex is second-order intentionality, where communication is aimed at
changing someone's mind.
While several studies have shown that non-human apes use gestures with first-order intentionality, very little was known about similar behavior in non-primates—until now.
Given
the animals' complex social structures and advanced cognitive abilities, the
researchers chose to investigate their ability to gesture with intentionality.
The researchers observed 38 different
gesture types and a total of 313 gesture tokens—each individual instance of a
gesture being used—from the 17 semi-captive elephants participating in the
research.
The elephants used gestures to
communicate their desire to get the apples only when a visually attentive
experimenter was present near them.
They were more likely to continue
gesturing when their goal was only partially met, such as receiving some, but
not all, the apples, than when they were fully satisfied. Furthermore, the
elephants elaborated their gesturing when their goal was not met, compared to
when it was fully met.
This study establishes the existence of goal-directed communication in semi-captive elephants. The researchers encourage future research to explore intentionality in other highly social species with a large repertoire of signals or gestures to deepen our understanding of how this capacity may have evolved.
Source: Elephants gesture with an intention to communicate their desires, study finds
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