ABSTRACT
Chimpanzees are the most intensively studied of the great apes. Call (in press) surveyed the literature on ape cognition between 1988 and 1997 and found that chimpanzees alone accounted for 70% of all studies published in leading journals on animal behavior, anthropology, and psychology. Chimpanzees have a gestural repertoire of about 30 to 40 gestures that includes limb movements and body postures. The aim of this chapter is to offer an overview of the gestural repertoire of chimpanzees in relation to its contexts of use, variability, and flexibility in gestural production. Chimpanzees also deploy auditory gestures, which also have a visual component, preferentially when others are oriented to them although the effect of body orientation is not as marked as with visual gestures. Chimpanzees also adapt their gesture production to the attentional state of the recipient, using visual gestures mostly when others are facing them and tactile gestures regardless of the attentional state of the recipient.
