Chimpanzee gestural exchanges share temporal structure with human language.

Humans regularly engage in efficient communicative conversations, which serve to socially align individuals 1. In conversations, we take fast-paced turns using a human-universal structure of deploying and receiving signals which shows consistent timing across cultures 2. We report here that chimpanzees also engage in rapid signal-to-signal turn-taking during face-to-face gestural exchanges with a similar average latency between turns to that of human conversation. This correspondence between human and chimpanzee face-to-face communication points to shared underlying rules in communication. These structures could be derived from shared ancestral mechanisms or convergent strategies that enhance coordinated interactions or manage competition for communicative 'space'. Human conversations exhibit a universal structure of fast-paced turns. Badihi et al. report previously undescribed similarities between the temporal structure of chimpanzee gestural exchanges and human conversations indicating that, like humans, chimpanzee communication may be shaped by analogous evolutionary or social pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]