CEEC

#APELANG team is thriving in Uganda 🇺🇬😍
Look at that chimp 🙈

🇫🇷 Félicitations à @camilletroisi.bsky.social pour sa bourse Fyssen!

🇬🇧 Congratulations to Camille for getting this @fondationfyssen.bsky.social research grant!

Félicitations !
Découvrez les six lauréates sélectionnées en décembre 2025 par la Fondation Fyssen, dont les projets se distinguent par leur qualité et leur originalité:
Aurélie Manin, @heikestein.bsky.social, Sophie Bagur, @camilletroisi.bsky.social, Juliana Loureiro de Almeida Campos, Eniko Csata

🇬🇧 With this new paper comes, for the first time officially, a new name!
Ethos changed its name! We are now the CSEC! Centre for the Study of Ethology and Cognition!

🇫🇷 Avec ce papier, un nouveau nom officiel pour la première fois!
EthoS devient CEEC! Centre d’Etude en Ethologie et Cognition!

a man in a leather jacket is making a funny face while looking at the camera . Alt: a man in a leather jacket is making a funny face while looking at the camera .

In other words, emotion-based communication can give rise to sophisticated cognitive processes, particularly on the receiver's side, and thus, provide insightful insights into the evolution of communication - and ultimately, language.

Our answer is YES!
While callers may produce relatively simple signals shaped by immediate emotional arousal, listeners likely enrich these signals pragmatically by integrating background knowledge and, therefore, engage in more complex cognitive processes.

In summary, the alarm calls of titi monkeys do not reflect external events, but the caller's emotional states. Moreover, sequences are not syntactic, but reflect changes in the caller's emotional state. So... Is the vocal system of titi monkeys worth investigating? 🤔

For example, titi monkeys know that raptors are the most dangerous predators and attack from above. When hearing A-calls (i.e., high arousal in the caller), listeners may infer the presence of a severe threat – most likely a raptor – and immediately look upwards to scan for danger.

What is super interesting is that listeners still manage to extract relevant information about the event eliciting alarm sequences.

👇See this playback of A-calls: the monkey knows immediately where to look!

We think it does so by making pragmatic inferences based on prior knowledge.

two women looking at a lantern with the words oh my god oh my god written on the bottom Alt: two women looking at a lantern with the words oh my god oh my god written on the bottom

But what about when these calls are combined into long sequences? We think that these sequences track dynamic changes in arousal over time 📈📉

a close up of a white cat 's face with blue eyes and the words ahhhh written on it . Alt: a close up of a white cat 's face with blue eyes and the words ahhhh written on it .

We found that alarm calls likely reflect the caller's arousal level at the time of emission of the call: A-calls encode high arousal (typically, when they spot a raptor 🦅), B-calls lower arousal (i.e., when any other disturbing event occur 🐯🦌🚶‍♂️)

The ABC‐D of animal linguistics: are syntax and compositionality for real? In several animal species, an alarm call (e.g. ABC notes in the Japanese tit Parus minor) can be immediately followed by a recruitment call (e.g. D notes) to yield a complex call that triggers a thir...

We used a dataset collected from observations, playback experiments and predator presentations during my PhD. We conducted formal linguistic analyses derived from this paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

The As and Bs of titi monkey linguistics: why emotional communication is not the enemy The alarm call sequences of titi monkeys (genera Plecturocebus, Callicebus and Cheracebus) have sparked important debates over whether they exhibit parallels with human language. Some researchers con...

🚨New animal linguistics paper🚨

Together with @geoffreymesbahi.bsky.social and @maelmleroux.bsky.social, we tried to finally answer this question: Do titi monkeys have complex syntactic skills?

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

J'ai longuement discuté de ce papier avec @evosapiensfr.bsky.social, qui le résume très bien ici 👇

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6vO...

Marine Grandgeorge and team published two pieces on the role of animals in helping elderly people and #Alzheimer patients:

shs.cairn.info/revue-geront...
&
shs.cairn.info/revue-geront...

3/3

Ludovic Dickel, Anne-Sophie Darmaillacq and team published an article on the care and welfare of cephalopods embryos

Here:
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

2/3

A call for CARE in animal behaviour: an holistic ethical research framework Despite increasing awareness of animal welfare, there are vast discrepancies between legal protections and recommended practices for different species…

New publications for a happy new year 2026!

@maelmleroux.bsky.social and colleagues published a new framework for #welfare, #EDI and #ethics in animal research.

Find out more here: A call for CARE!
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

1/3

Our new paper on yawn vocalizations in geladas is out on iScience!
Happy holidays to you all :)

OA here:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
@ethos-research.bsky.social @lucapedruzzi.bsky.social @leakeyfoundation.org

L'effet chat : un podcast à écouter en ligne | France Culture LSD s’intéresse à la coévolution entre humains et chats : une histoire de fascination, d’amour et de paradoxe, entre science, culture et éthique du vivant. Réalisation : Gilles Blanchard.

Retrouvez Marine Grandgorge la semaine prochaine sur LSD @franceculture.fr !

www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

"Excuse-me, I think you dropped something : Unexpected factors involved in physical understanding of hands movements by mangabeys"
If you missed my poster this evening, come chat with me about it tomorrow #ASABwinter2025 @ethos-research.bsky.social

Woman in brown shirt in front of poster on recruitment and contact calls in zosterops

Great work from @estelle-meaux.bsky.social on the use of contact calls in a recruitment context in white-eyes (and support from former lab member @mdiquelou.bsky.social ) #ASABWinter2025
@ethos-research.bsky.social

📢 Calling all primatologists 📢

EFP2026 in Montpellier is now open for abstracts & registration!

🗓 Deadline for abstract : 13 March 2026 (before if mobility grant application)

Submit: www.alphavisa.com/efp/2026/abs...

Register: www.alphavisa.com/efp/2026/reg...

All abstracts will be accepted!

🚨Job Alert plz RT!

Johns Hopkins Psych & Brain Sciences is looking for a new colleague using behavioral or computational approaches to study cognition!

We are excited about many areas of (esp higher) cognition in human adults, children, or nonhuman animals

Open-rank

apply.interfolio.com/178146

Alban Lemasson et Maël Leroux étaient aux mardis de l’espace des sciences !
Quand les animaux prennent la parole !
Retrouvez leur conférence en ligne ici:
www.youtube.com/live/io6tAYL...
Et leur livre: www.editions-apogee.com/espace-des-s...
@espacedessciences.bsky.social
@maelmleroux.bsky.social

Today, we have the privilege of welcoming Leo @fusanilab.bsky.social from @klf-univienna.bsky.social @univie.ac.at
And we get to hear from some amazing research about courtship in birds 🐦

Grande invitée : Mélissa Berthet, éthologue et spécialiste du langage des primates | RTS Originaire de Savoie, Melissa Berthet a fait de l’écoute des animaux son métier. Après un master à Rennes et une thèse à l’Université de Neuchâtel, elle suit au Brésil des singes titis qu’elle identif...

Ce matin j'ai eu l'honneur d'être l'invitée de l'émission CQFD sur RTS la 1ère ! C'est génial d'avoir eu une longue interview où j'ai eu le temps de développer, nuancer, et raconter des anecdotes ! Merci à Cécile Guerin et l'équipe @armorique.ici.fr !

www.rts.ch/audio-podcas...

A series of conferences at Paimpont @rennesuniv.bsky.social including a talk from our own Marine Grandgeorge 🥰

La seiche commune, véritable caméléon des mers ! Aujourd’hui, cap sur le golfe du Morbihan, à la rencontre de la seiche commune ! 🐙 Ne te fie pas à son allure tranquille… Ce mollusque céphalopode est un ...

Le dernier épisode de Bêtes de science @futurasciences.bsky.social est dédié aux capacites d'anticipation et de contrôle de soi chez les seiches communes poke @ethos-research.bsky.social @rennesuniv.bsky.social. Bonne écoute : podcasts.futura-sciences.com/futura-betes...

A Audierne, @maelmleroux.bsky.social à également présenté (et dédicacé!) le livre co-écrit avec Alban Lemasson: Quand les animaux prennent la parole!, aux éditions Apogée #FDS2025
www.editions-apogee.com/espace-des-s...

A Paimpont toujours @rennesuniv.bsky.social , mais aussi dans un café des sciences à La Gacilly, Alban Lemasson et @maelmleroux.bsky.social ont présenté leur livre sur la linguistique animale: quand les animaux prennent la parole, aux éditions Apogée #FDS2025
www.editions-apogee.com/espace-des-s...