ABSTRACT

This chapter shows that a comparative approach can suggest many kinds of questions that will help ethologists to define central issues and themes in the ontogeny of the behavior of communicating. It concerns short accounts of characteristics of communication and its study by ethologists, the social milieu in which communication functions, and the kinds of ontogenetic changes in individuals and their social behavior that are of basic importance to developmental trends in communicating. The chapter examines the kinds of things ethologists know about the ontogeny of formalized signaling, including developmental changes in the stimuli eliciting signaling behavior. It reviews development of appropriate responding to signaling in changing circumstances. Social behavior is more complex and difficult to manage than are most other kinds of behavior. As individuals develop in capability they enter social regimes in which their communication must deal with different issues and serve new or altered functions.