Species-Specific Perceptual Processing of Vocal Sounds by Monkeys

Monkeys of four species were trained to discriminate between sets of natural tonal calls of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) by the position of a frequency-inflection peak or by initial pitch. The Japanese macaques consistently performed best on peak position and the other species on pitch. The results imply special strategies for perceptional processing of vocal sounds and suggest parallels with human speech perception.