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A comparative approach to the phylogeny of laughter and smiling.

  • January 1972
Authors:
Jan A.R.A.M. van Hooff at Utrecht University
Jan A.R.A.M. van Hooff
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Abstract

Presents comparative data from subhuman species to elucidate the nature of and relations between smiling and laughter. The evolution of smiling and laughter from the expressive movements of lower primates and the influence of human language on these nonverbal expressions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
vHooff 1989 Laugh Humour. p
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vHooff 1972 Phylogeny Lau
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... As amicable play interactions can foster social bonds between players (Shimada and Sueur 2018), it is vital for them to avoid unnecessary conflicts. To convey a friendly stance toward their partner and prevent escalation to aggression, animals use a variety of play signals, including facial expressions specific to play contexts (van Hooff 1972;Pellis and Pellis 1996;Palagi et al. 2016). ...
... Japanese macaques display facial expressions (i.e., play face, also called relaxed open-mouth display) that are specific to the context of play by opening the mouth in a relaxed way and drawing the corners of the mouth slightly backward (Preuschoft and van Hooff 1995;Petit et al. 2008;Scopa and Palagi 2016). Owing to their morphological and functional similarities, this expression is considered homologous to human laughter (van Hooff 1967(van Hooff , 1972de Waal 2003;Davila-Ross et al. 2015). This study compared dyadic play fighting sessions preceded by play face with ones not preceded by play face. ...
... It has been suggested that play face represents the spontaneous expression of an individual's internal state, such as a playful propensity and pleasurable emotion (van Hooff 1972;Demuru et al. 2015;Scopa and Palagi 2016). Hence, we hypothesized that play face expression before play fighting initiation is likelier in individuals with higher play frequency and with preferable partners. ...
Play face in Japanese macaques reflects the sender’s play motivation
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Animals often initiate social interactions by exchanging signals. Especially when initiating amicable interactions, signaling one’s friendly stance toward others in advance may be important to avoid being misunderstood as having hostile intentions. We used data on dyadic play fighting in a group of Japanese macaques, Macaca fuscata , to examine the function of “play face” at the opening of a play session. We found no support for the previously proposed hypothesis that play face expression is likelier before entering risky situations (e.g., before gaining an undue advantage over the partner) to avoid being misunderstood. The results showed that play face expression was likelier in male juveniles before initiating play with other males than in females before initiating play with males or other females and that juveniles were likelier to express play face before initiating play with others closer in age. As male Japanese macaques play more frequently than females, and juveniles prefer to play with individuals closer in age, play face expression before play initiation may reflect the individual’s motivation for subsequent play interactions. This interpretation is supported by our observation that play bouts lasted longer when initiated with bidirectional play face by both participants than when initiated without play face. We also argued that since there was no tendency that play face was likelier to be expressed toward individuals with low play propensity (e.g., females) or infrequent partners to play with (e.g., individuals more distant in age), Japanese macaques may not tactically deploy this signal to recruit reluctant partners.
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... Non-human primates, our close evolutionary cousins, have a very similar facial muscle (i.e., zygomaticus major muscle, AU12; Powell et al., 2018) which activates when expressing bared-teeth displays (hereafter BTs). Due to similarities in morphologylips being retracted and the teeth being exposed Van Hooff, 1967)and functioncommunicating approachability or appeasement (Waller & Dunbar, 2005)with human smiles, the BT has been proposed to be the origin of the human smile (Van Hooff, 1972). A majority of primates, in fact, have quite complex facial musculature, involving movements of the mouth and lips, eyelids and eyebrows, forehead, and the ears (Diogo et al., 2009), allowing them to produce a wide range of expressive facial movements (Van Hooff, 1967;Waller & Micheletta, 2013). ...
... They are characterized by a high degree of fission-fusion social dynamics, and typically males dominate over females, with male dominance playing a crucial role in reproductive success (Wrangham, 1986;Wroblewski et al., 2009). The BT in chimpanzees has been described in a number of studies which report its usage in multiple social contexts, ranging from submission to affiliation to sexual interaction (Parr et al., 2005;Preuschoft & van Hooff, 1997;Van Hooff, 1967, 1972, 1973Waller & Dunbar, 2005), communicating the signaler's wishes of no harm or benign intent. Thus, it ultimately functions to reduce the risk of aggression and increase affinity (Van Hooff, 1967;Waller & Dunbar, 2005). ...
The Association Between the Bared-Teeth Display and Social Dominance in Captive Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)
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Humans use smiles - widely observed emotional expressions - in a variety of social situations, of which the meaning varies depending on social relationship and the context in which it is displayed. The homologue of the human smile in non-human primates - both due to morphological and functional similarities - is the bared-teeth display (BT). According to the power asymmetry hypothesis (PAH), species with strict linear dominance hierarchies are predicted to produce distinct communicative signals to avoid escalations of social conflicts. Hence, while the BT in a despotic species is predicted to be expressed from low- to high-ranking individuals, signaling submission, the BT in a tolerant species is predicted to be expressed in multiple contexts, regardless of rank. We tested this hypothesis in a group of 8 captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), a species commonly characterized as rather despotic. An investigation of 11,774 dyadic social interactions revealed this chimpanzee group to have a linear dominance hierarchy, with moderate steepness. A Bayesian GLMM - used to test the effects of social contexts and rank relationships of dyads on the use of the BT display - indicated multi-contextual use of the BT which is contingent on the rank relationship. We also found that slight morphological and/or acoustic variants (i.e., silent bared-teeth and vocalized bared-teeth) of the BT display may have different communicative meanings. Our findings are in line with the prediction derived from the PAH for a moderately despotic species, and the view that the human smile originated from the primate BT display. Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-022-00138-1.
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... On a micro level, the study of appeasement in mammals and birds in ethology, sociology, psychology, and communication dates back to the 1950s (Alpher & France, 1993;de Waal, 1986de Waal, , 1988Goffman, 1956Goffman, , 1967Goldenthal et al., 1981;Keltner, 1995;Preuschoft & van Hooff, 1997;Trower & Gilbert, 1989;van Hooff, 1962van Hooff, , 1967van Hooff, , 1972etc.). Similar to appeasement as used by both marginalised and dominant social groups in response to one another, appeasement is also used by infants and youngsters as well as parents and caregivers in response to one another. ...
History of the term 'appeasement': a response to Bailey et al. (2023)
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This letter to the editor aims to address claims made by Bailey et al. [2023. Appeasement: Replacing Stockholm syndrome as a definition of a survival strategy. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 14(1), 2161038] about the history of the concept of appeasement in relation to mammalian survival responses as well as the fawn response, by offering a brief overview and analysis of the literature.
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... Barrearen egiteko nagusia da besteei adieraztea norbera alai eta jolaserako prest dagoela, pertsona egoera dibertigarri batean dagoela, eta besteak ere egoera horretara eraman nahiko lituzkeela(Van Hooff, 1972). Barrearen soinuak garun zirkuitu batzuk aktibatu eta emozio positiboak eragiten ditu besteengan(Gervais eta Wilson, 2005) eta modu jakin batean jokatzera eramaten dituhaiek. ...
ESTRESA ARINDU NERBIO BAGOA AKTIBATUZ ETA UMOREA LANDUZ
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Bere ingurunean aldaketak gertatzen direnean eta erronka berriei aurre egin behar dienean, jokaera berri batzuk eskatzen zaizkio organismoari, baina jokaera horiek sarritan zailak izaten dira eta energia asko eskatzen dute. Ingurunean gertatzen diren aldaketak ustekabekoak eta kontrolagaitzak direnean, informazio konplexua azkar prozesatzea eskatzen duten erronkei aurre egin behar die subjektuak; erantzun egokia azkar eman beharrean gertatzen da, baina ez du erantzun bizkor horrek eskatzen duen baliabiderik.
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... This idea lay dormant for a long time, to be taken up again in the 20th century: the expressive continuity between species was further explored by ethologists such as Schneirla, Lorenz and Tinbergen, who set forward the possibility of tracing phylogenies from behavioral data (for a review, see Gaspar, Esteves & Arriaga, 2014). Over the years evidence accumulated on formal similarities indicative of common origin, and on function conservation, but also on modified function and diversified form, especially in great apes (Preuschoft & van Hoof, 1997;van Hooff, 1972;). Additionally, and as humans do, chimpanzees and bonobos develop individual and group idiosyncrasies in their expressive behavior, purporting the need to observe and assess group repertoires closely and monitor them continuously (Bard, Gaspar & Vick, 2011;Gaspar, 2006). ...
Let’s Talk about the Animals – Taking the Outcomes of Animal Models of Human Emotion and Affective Behavior Back to Understanding Animal Minds and Emotions
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The socioemotional lives of animals have been brought to light over the years by studies seeking to address specific topics in animal emotion, cognition and behavior. Breakthrough information has been provided by field work with natural communities, and notable advances have stemmed from non-invasive research with captive animals and from laboratory work entailing varying degrees of invasiveness. But there is a source of information on animals that has not always been integrated in the knowledge on animals’ emotional lives: the outputs of studies where animals served as models of human emotional processes but that were seldom published as literature on animals. This article proposes an integrated view whereby the vast amount of information amassed by the brain and behavioral sciences over the course of the last 30 years on the affective experiences of animals, their triggers, biomarkers and behavioral correlates is fully integrated in an account of animal emotions. Topics where this knowledge can accommodate further integration from studies with animals models of the human mind are the parental care and different types of affective bonds; the experience of empathic reactions, the association between emotions, expressive behavior and affective bonds, and conscience. Fostering further connection between these neuroscience and behavioral studies might contribute to 1) widening the breath of measures used in assessing the well-being of animals, 2) widening criteria used by ethical committees considering studies with animals, and 3) to review some common practices that by those who have key roles in the management of wild or captive animals.
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... Third, the acoustic similarities and differences in spontaneous laughter across primate species match established trees of species-relatedness(Davila Ross et al., 2009). Collectively, these findings converge on the conclusion that spontaneous and volitional laughs are produced by different vocal and neurocognitive systems, and that there is phylogenetic continuity from non-human vocalisations to human spontaneous laughter (for further arguments see e.g.van Hooff, 1972;Provine, 2000;Burling, 2005;Gervais & Wilson, 2005;Vettin & Todt, 2005;Fitch, 2016; inter alia). Put simply, it is very likely that the vocalisations of non-human primates are homologous not with language use, but with (real) laughter and other spontaneous vocalisations in humans. ...
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Detailed comparative studies have revealed many surface similarities between linguistic communication and the communication of nonhumans. How should we interpret these discoveries in linguistic and cognitive perspective? We review the literature with a specific focus on analogy (similar features and function but not shared ancestry) and homology (shared ancestry). We conclude that combinatorial features of animal communication are analogous but not homologous to natural language. Homologies are found instead in cognitive capacities of attention manipulation, which are enriched in humans, making possible many distinctive forms of communication, including language use. We therefore present a new, graded taxonomy of means of attention manipulation, including a new class we call Ladyginian, which is related to but slightly broader than the more familiar class of Gricean interaction. Only in the latter do actors have the goal of revealing specifically informative intentions. Great ape interaction may be best characterized as Ladyginian but not Gricean. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Linguistics, Volume 9 is January 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
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... Although we share laughter with the great apes [1], and the vocalization itself is homologous with the play invitation pant of catarrhine primates [2,3], human laughter differs from that found in nonhuman primates in the fine detail of both its structure and its physiological characteristics [3][4][5]. Structurally, the difference is marked by a shift from an exhalation-inhalation sequence in monkeys and apes to an exhalation-only sequence with no intervening inhalation in humans. ...
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In anthropoid primates, social grooming is the principal mechanism (mediated by the central nervous system endorphin system) that underpins social bonding. However, the time available for social grooming is limited, and this imposes an upper limit on the size of group that can be bonded in this way. I suggest that, when hominins needed to increase the size of their groups beyond the limit that could be bonded by grooming, they co-opted laughter (a modified version of the play vocalization found widely among the catarrhine primates) as a form of chorusing to fill the gap. I show, first, that human laughter both upregulates the brain's endorphin system and increases the sense of bonding between those who laugh together. I then use a reverse engineering approach to model group sizes and grooming time requirements for fossil hominin species to search for pinch points where a phase shift in bonding mechanisms might have occurred. The results suggest that the most likely time for the origin of human-like laughter is the appearance of the genus Homo ca 2.5 Ma. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Cracking the laugh code: laughter through the lens of biology, psychology and neuroscience’.
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Retrospective Analysis Within a Counterpoint Framework: A Demonstration in Interpreting the Motives Involved in an Ancient Maya Stela Deposit at Quebrada de Oro, Belize
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This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online. For more information, please read the site FAQs.
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Perceptual integration of bodily and facial emotion cues in chimpanzees and humans
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  • May 2023
For highly visual species like primates, facial and bodily emotion expressions play a crucial role in emotion perception. However, most research focuses on facial expressions, while perception of bodily cues is still poorly understood. Using a comparative priming eye-tracking design, we examined whether our close primate relatives, the chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), and humans infer emotions from bodily cues through subsequent perceptual integration with facial expressions. In Experiment 1, we primed chimpanzees with videos of bodily movements of unfamiliar conspecifics engaged in social activities of opposite valence (play, fear) against neutral control scenes to examine attentional bias towards succeeding congruent or incongruent facial expressions. In Experiment 2, we assessed the same attentional bias in humans yet using stimuli showing unfamiliar humans. In Experiment 3, humans watched the chimpanzee stimuli of Experiment 1, to examine cross-species emotion perception. Chimpanzees exhibited a persistent fear-related attention bias but did not associate bodily with congruent facial cues. By contrast, humans prioritized conspecifics’ congruent facial expressions (matching bodily scenes) over incongruent ones (mismatching). Nevertheless, humans exhibited no congruency effect when viewing chimpanzee stimuli, suggesting difficulty in cross-species emotion perception. These results highlight differences in emotion perception, with humans being greatly affected by fearful and playful bodily cues and chimpanzees strongly biased toward fearful expressions, regardless of the preceding scene. The data advances our knowledge on the evolution of emotion signalling and presence of distinct perceptual patterns in hominids.
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Inbar, A. (2022). Smiling and laughter as a politeness strategy in Israeli discourse. Israel Studies in Language and Society, 15(1), 114-137. [In Hebrew]
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The present study discusses some of the roles of smiling and laughter in spoken Hebrew discourse, focusing on their occurrences in contexts such as saying things that do not reconcile with social values, proposing a correction, criticizing, and describing unpleasant situations. I suggest that in these contexts, smiling and laughter serve as a means of mitigation and negation, and could be considered as a politeness strategy. Moreover, identifying this role in discourse makes it possible to reveal the values and forms of behavior accepted in the Israeli society, since in many cases the image of the speakers is threatened when it can be attributed a value that deviates from the norm.
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