Psychology - Human and Animal Communication

• Observation of animals suggests they can only communicate on a limited number of areas related to survival, reproduction, territory and food
• Animal communication

  • Alarm calls to warn of predators
  • Use of pheromones to indicate fertility
  • Use of scent signals to mark territory
  • Coordination of pack hunting with sound
• Waggle dance of honeybees

  Communicates the location of food from the hive
• Honeybees communicate the distance of food from the hive through the type of dance - round dance for less than 100m, waggle dance for more than 100m
• Von Frisch's study on honeybee communication has been replicated with the same results, so the findings can be trusted
• Criticisms of Von Frisch's study include that the bees' behaviour may not have been the same as in the wild, and the transparent beehive may have affected their behaviour
• The role of sound in bee communication has since been found to be important, and bees may be able to produce cognitive maps including memories of landmarks
• Human language allows us to talk about a wide range of topics beyond just survival and reproduction, and to imagine and plan for the future
• Humans rely less on body language and other types of signaling compared to animals, due to the complexity of human spoken language