ABSTRACT
The natural communication signals of animals, both visual and vocal, fall into the emotion-based category, and never qualify as symbols. Although the empirical basis for judgments about the affective nature of natural animal signals has rarely been made explicit, two properties of animal communication are relevant. The first is input specificity; that is, the relationship between signal morphology and the eliciting event. The second is the behavioral context of signals; this refers to the relationship between a signal and the other behavior accompanying production. This chapter describes examples of animal signals for which the stimulus or referent is so specific that it strains credibility to think of them as simple emotional displays. It addresses the issue of behavioral context by presenting evidence that some animal signals are not inextricably bound to a suite of emotional responses. The chapter highlights that signal production is determined not only by stimulus characteristics, but also by the social circumstances of the signaler.
