Sound on the rebound: Bringing form and function back to the forefront in understanding nonhuman primate vocal signaling

Scientists often posit an intimate connection between form and function, a conceptual approach that plays a central role in evolutionary anthropology. Functional morphologists and paleontologists, for example, routinely conne ct structure and function in exploring how skeletal features of fossils ref lect adaptations to particular motor demands. Archeologists' reconstruction s of early hominid life-ways are guided by functional interpretations of ma terial remains, while both primatologists and human ecologists use structur al properties of the environment to understand important aspects of social organization. Although comparisons to human language were characteristic of early work on nonhuman primate vocal behavior as well, during the last two or more decades they also have become dominent in the anthropological subf ield of acoustic primatology. This strategy has paid dividends by, for exam ple, generating widespread interest in primate signaling and catalyzing a v ariety of fruitful empirical studies. However, it also creates conceptual w orries, particularly in the teleology inherent in using complex linguistic phenomena from humans as models for simpler vocal processes in nonhumans.