Turn-taking in grooming interactions of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) in the wild: the role of demographic and social factors

Abstract Cooperative turn-taking, a fundamental characteristic of human social interaction, has been postulated as a crucial mechanism for language emergence and is observed across the primate lineage. However, relatively little is known about the influence of demographic and social factors on turn-taking. As according to the sociolinguistic Communication Accommodation Theory, individuals adapt their communication according to their recipient characteristics, which may shape turn-taking. Thus, we aimed to gain insights into the factors (age, relatedness, dominance rank, and social bonds) in relation to the turn-taking infrastructure of one of our closest living relatives, the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) of the Ngogo population in Kibale National Park, Uganda. We specifically focused on a cooperative context, grooming, including gestures and actions, and collected data over nine months (September 2021 to June 2022) involving 42 male chimpanzees. We analysed 311 grooming interactions among 157 dyads concerning the role of demographic and social factors in turn transition infrastructure, turn transition types, and temporal relationships. Our findings demonstrated that turn transitions and types were influenced by age and dominance rank, whereas social bonds and relatedness did not exhibit effects. Specifically, the probability of turn transitions was higher for older initiators and lower-ranking or younger recipients. These effects varied across turn transition types, where initiator’s dominance rank and relatedness showed no effects on any type. In addition, no effect was found for the temporal relationships. Although the social dynamics of turn-taking remain largely unexplored across both human and non-human studies, our findings suggest that turn-taking can occur selectively between certain individuals, in line with the Communication Accommodation Theory, underscoring the need for greater focus on investigating how demographic and social factors shape turn-taking.