Do Great Apes Use Iconic Gestures?
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22430239 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Marc Perlman (0000-0002-1269-3882, University College Birmingham, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | e70022-e70022 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | WIREs Cognitive Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1939-5078 • E-ISSN: 1939-5086 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/wcs.70022 |
| PMID | 41656559 |
| OpenAlex | W7128394321 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 111 |
Many researchers in cognitive science and linguistics now recognize that iconicity—perceived resemblance between the form and meaning of a signal (e.g., a word, sign, or gesture)—is an essential property of language, playing vital roles in its processing, learning, and historical development. Iconicity is also fundamental to the human ability to create meaningful new signals without reliance on convention. This iconic turn raises a critical question for the study of language origins: Do great apes use iconic gestures? Apes are well documented to use a flexible and wide‐ranging repertoire of gestures, and many appear to be iconic representations of actions, including directive touches, visual directives, and pantomimed actions. However, the most widely accepted theories—ontogenetic ritualization and biological inheritance through phylogenetic ritualization—argue that this apparent form‐meaning resemblance is not psychologically real to the apes using the gestures. They argue instead that effective actions are channeled into gestures through repeated use, either through an individual's experience or over generations of evolution. Yet, it is increasingly recognized that these theories cannot account for the variability and contextual tuning of ape gestures. Alternatively, reasoning from cognitive theories of human gesture and iconicity as rooted in sensorimotor simulation and mental imagery, apes may use a range of gestures that appear homologous to the iconic gestures of humans, even if comparatively restricted in imaginative scope and anchored heavily in a here‐and‐now context. This fundamental capacity for iconic gesturing may have been a critical precursor to the evolution of language.
Affordance · Cognition · Embodied cognition · Gesture · Iconicity · Repertoire · Ritualization · Action Observation and Synchronization · Hearing Impairment and Communication · Multisensory perception and integration
The Anatomy of Meaning
Gesture Visible Action as Utterance
Metaphor and Gesture
How representational gestures help speaking
Arbitrariness, Iconicity, and Systematicity in Language
Teaching Sign Language to a Chimpanzee
Depicting as a method of communication.
Children Creating Core Properties of Language
Can an Ape Create a Sentence?
Rethinking constructed action
Language as a multimodal phenomenon
Size sound symbolism in the English lexicon
Iconicity
Origins of Human Communication
What we know and don't know about great ape cultural communication in the wild
Use of gesture sequences in chimpanzees
Differential use of attentional and visual communicative signaling by orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) and gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) in response to the attentional status of a human
Sound Symbolism in the Lexicon
Infants can create iconic gestures during natural interactions with caregivers
Patterned iconicity in sign language lexicons
Iconicity in Syntax
Iconicity as a General Property of Language
Feeling phonology
Quotations as Demonstrations
Some Considerations for a Theory of Language Origins
Primate Vocalization, Gesture, and the Evolution of Human Language
Representation of Action Through Iconic Gesture in a Captive Lowland Gorilla
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |