Hi, As I said before in the last one, these questions are going to be too long to put into a single question, so I

Question: Hi, As I said before in the last one, these questions are going to be too long to put into a single question, so I will split them up into several different ones. Do you consider the following evolutionary trait to be an innate or learnt behavioural response: Communication (as a way of conveying a message, not necessarily with words) – if an organism (that is able to communicate) was placed in solitary confinement for its entire life, then was released would it be able to communicate with others of its kind, not with words, but with body language, expression, colour change (in animals like cuttlefish), and therefore is communication directly linked to evolution and even to the extent that could feelings and emotions of a human being be interpreted by a far distant ancestor Australopithecine, like Lucy. Thanks. Have a think, and tell me your thoughts, I will be happy to reply with some thoughts, and theories. Andrew
- Keywords:
  ancestor,
  behavioural,
  communicate),
  communication,
  innate,
  response,
  trait
Asked by awood to Ed, Katie, Sam, Steve, Vera on 21 Jun 2011.
- Steven Daly answered on 17 Jun 2011:
  
  I am certain that this will have been studies, and again I think someone here will know a lot better than me here. But here goes.
  
  I think it depends on the organism and how much the brain can adapt. For humans, communication is learnt in childhood, mainly, and it will depend on who raised them how they would communicate. ‘Wild children’ who were raised by dogs, for example, will have similar behavior is dogs. They will bark, growl, and use the signs of submission that dogs use. So again I will go with this being a something that is learnt. Dogs themselves when tame learn to communicate with humans, and us with them, just not with words. We understand a growl means back off, they understand certain commands.
- Ed Morrison answered on 17 Jun 2011:
  
  Wow, that is a mega question.
  
  The answer is, it depends on the species and the form of communication. Some ways of communicating are instinctive and animals can do them if they were raised in isolation. Others need to be learned. Some need to be learned during a special sensitive period, often in childhood.
  
  Birdsong is a nice exmaple. Some birds do not need to learn their songs and can produce them even if raised in acoustic isolation (experiments have been done like this). Other birds, so called songbirds, need to learn their songs, sometimes a different one each season. If they are raised in isolation they cannot produce the full song, only a muted squawk, which is no good for attracting mates.
  
  Some emotions are recognisable between distantly related animals. For example, aggressive body language can be seen in many animals – baring teeth, making themselves look big and so on. So I would guess that Lucy would have recognised a smile, and sadness and aggression, just like we can sort of do with apes, but not always perfectly.
- Vera Weisbecker answered on 18 Jun 2011:
  
  Ed and Steven are right, although I wouldn’t be surprised if lack of communication in mammals yields a severely disabled individual. Communication is so much part of your evolutionary make-up that your brain can’t develop properly without communication input. From an awfully cruel experiment some time in the middle ages, where babies were fed and changed but not otherwise touched or communicated with, we know that babies don’t survive such conditions.
- Katie Marriott answered on 19 Jun 2011:
  
  Wow another good question! I am really not sure about this one but it seems the others have had an idea! With humans it may be difficult to learn certain languages. For example, western people find it difficult to learn chinese as they make very different sounds to western languages.
- Sam Tazzyman answered on 21 Jun 2011:
  
  Katie, I can’t remember exactly but I think there is some time reasonably young in human development at which the vocabulary of verbal sounds that you can make cannot be added to (or possibly can only be added to with great difficulty) – this is why for example French speaking people often struggle with the soft “th” sound at the start of “the”.