Pointing by apes is near-ubiquitous in captivity, yet rare in their natural habitats. This has implications for understanding both the ontogeny and heritability of pointing, conceived as a behavioral phenotype. The data suggest that the cognitive capacity for manual deixis was possessed by the last common ancestor of humans and the great apes. In this review, nonverbal reference is distinguished from symbolic reference. An operational definition of intentional communication is delineated, citing published or forthcoming examples for each of the defining criteria from studies of manual gestures in apes. Claims that chimpanzees do not point amongst themselves or do not gesture declaratively are refuted with published examples. Links between pointing and cognitive milestones in other domains relating means to ends are discussed. Finally, an evolutionary scenario of pointing as an adaptation to changes in hominid development is briefly sketched.
2025. Animal cultures: A triumph or pitfall of naturalism?. Internationales Jahrbuch für philosophische Anthropologie 12:1 ► pp. 185 ff.
Linaza, José Luis, Colwyn Trevarthen, Juan-Carlos Gómez & Asunción González-del-Yerro
2024. Exploratory Study on Dyadic Interactions with and without Objects in Western Humans and Chimpanzees. Human Arenas
Rodrigues, Evelina D. & Marlen Fröhlich
2024. Operationalizing Intentionality in Primate Communication: Social and Ecological Considerations. International Journal of Primatology 45:3 ► pp. 501 ff.
Bourjade, Marie, Mawa Dafreville, Céline Scola & Marianne Jover
2023. Six-month-old infants’ communication in a comparative perspective: Do maternal attention and interaction matter?. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 231 ► pp. 105651 ff.
Kaplan, Gisela
2023. Evolution of human language: duetting as part of prosociality and cognition. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 11
Leavens, David A., Mahmoud M. Elsherif & Hannah Clark
2023. What animals can tell us about attentional prerequisites of language acquisition. Language & Communication 92 ► pp. 55 ff.
Bard, Kim A, Heidi Keller, Kirsty M Ross, Barry Hewlett, Lauren Butler, Sarah T Boysen & Tetsuro Matsuzawa
2022. Joint Attention in Human and Chimpanzee Infants in Varied Socio-Ecological Contexts. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 86:4 ► pp. 7 ff.
Cartmill, Erica A.
2022. Gesture. Annual Review of Anthropology 51:1 ► pp. 455 ff.
Cartmill, Erica A.
2025. Gestural Iconicity and Alignment as Steps in the Evolution of Language. Topics in Cognitive Science 17:3 ► pp. 469 ff.
Holler, Judith
2022. Visual bodily signals as core devices for coordinating minds in interaction. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 377:1859
Marno, Hanna, Christoph J. Völter, Brandon Tinklenberg, Dan Sperber & Josep Call
2022. Learning from communication versus observation in great apes. Scientific Reports 12:1
Quintero, Fredy, Sonia Touitou, Martina Magris & Klaus Zuberbühler
2022. An Audience Effect in Sooty Mangabey Alarm Calling. Frontiers in Psychology 13
Leavens, David A.
2021. The Referential Problem Space revisited: An ecological hypothesis of the evolutionary and developmental origins of pointing. WIREs Cognitive Science 12:4
2020. Is Conceptual Diversity an Advantage for Scientific Inquiry? A Case Study on the Concept of ‘Gesture’ in Comparative Psychology. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science 54:4 ► pp. 805 ff.
Duranton, Charlotte & Florence Gaunet
2020. Le rôle de l’affiliation dans la synchronisation comportementale interspécifique du chien avec l’humain : des processus cognitifs sociaux analogues à ceux de l’humain. L’Année psychologique Vol. 120:4 ► pp. 315 ff.
Fröhlich, Marlen & Carel P. van Schaik
2020. Must all signals be evolved? A proposal for a new classification of communicative acts. WIREs Cognitive Science 11:4
Henschel, Melanie, James Winters, Thomas F. Müller & Juliane Bräuer
2020. Effect of shared information and owner behavior on showing in dogs (Canis familiaris). Animal Cognition 23:5 ► pp. 1019 ff.
Prieur, Jacques, Stéphanie Barbu, Catherine Blois‐Heulin & Alban Lemasson
2020. The origins of gestures and language: history, current advances and proposed theories. Biological Reviews 95:3 ► pp. 531 ff.
2019. Manipulating social cues in baboon gesture learning: what does it tell us about the evolution of communication?. Animal Cognition 22:1 ► pp. 113 ff.
Fröhlich, Marlen, Christine Sievers, Simon W. Townsend, Thibaud Gruber & Carel P. van Schaik
2019. Multimodal communication and language origins: integrating gestures and vocalizations. Biological Reviews 94:5 ► pp. 1809 ff.
Lamaury, Augustine, Hélène Cochet & Marie Bourjade
2019. Acquisition of joint attention by olive baboons gesturing toward humans. Animal Cognition 22:4 ► pp. 567 ff.
2014. Olive baboons, Papio anubis, adjust their visual and auditory intentional gestures to the visual attention of others. Animal Behaviour 87 ► pp. 121 ff.
Gaunet, Florence & Farid El Massioui
2014. Marked referential communicative behaviours, but no differentiation of the “knowledge state” of humans in untrained pet dogs versus 1-year-old infants. Animal Cognition 17:5 ► pp. 1137 ff.
Gillespie-Lynch, Kristen, Patricia M. Greenfield, Heidi Lyn & Sue Savage-Rumbaugh
2014. Gestural and symbolic development among apes and humans: support for a multimodal theory of language evolution. Frontiers in Psychology 5
2013. Manual laterality for pointing gestures compared to grasping actions in guenons and mangabeys. Animal Behaviour 86:4 ► pp. 705 ff.
Cartmill, Erica A., Sian Beilock & Susan Goldin-Meadow
2012. A word in the hand: action, gesture and mental representation in humans and non-human primates. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367:1585 ► pp. 129 ff.
Hurford, James R.
2012. Linguistics From an Evolutionary Point of View. In Philosophy of Linguistics, ► pp. 477 ff.
Leavens, David A., Jon Ely, William D. Hopkins & Kim A. Bard
2012. Effects of cage mesh on pointing: hand shapes in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Animal Cognition 15:3 ► pp. 437 ff.
Maille, Audrey, Lucie Engelhart, Marie Bourjade, Catherine Blois-Heulin & Esteban Andres Fridman
2012. To Beg, or Not to Beg? That Is the Question: Mangabeys Modify Their Production of Requesting Gestures in Response to Human’s Attentional States. PLoS ONE 7:7 ► pp. e41197 ff.
Meguerditchian, Adrien, Molly J. Gardner, Steven J. Schapiro & William D. Hopkins
2012. The sound of one-hand clapping: handedness and perisylvian neural correlates of a communicative gesture in chimpanzees. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 279:1735 ► pp. 1959 ff.
Schwartz, Jean-Luc & Hélène Lœvenbruck
2012. Chapitre 5. La parole, entre objets vocaux et objets du monde. In La psychologie cognitive, ► pp. 165 ff.
Boë, Louis-Jean, Jean Granat, Jean-Louis Heim, Jean-Luc Schwartz, Pierre Badin, Guillaume Barbier, Guillaume Captier, Antoine Serrurier & Nicolas Kielwasser
2011. Considérations ontogénétiques et phylogénétiques concernant l’origine de la parole. Revue de primatologie 3
CALL, JOSEP
2011. How Artificial Communication Affects the Communication and Cognition of the Great Apes. Mind & Language 26:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Fedurek, Pawel & Katie E. Slocombe
2011. Primate Vocal Communication: A Useful Tool for Understanding Human Speech and Language Evolution?. Human Biology 83:2 ► pp. 153 ff.
Gaunet, Florence & Bertrand L. Deputte
2011. Functionally referential and intentional communication in the domestic dog: effects of spatial and social contexts. Animal Cognition 14:6 ► pp. 849 ff.
Leavens, David A. & Kim A. Bard
2011. Environmental Influences on Joint Attention in Great Apes: Implications for Human Cognition. Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology 10:1 ► pp. 9 ff.
Pika, Simone & Thomas Bugnyar
2011. The use of referential gestures in ravens (Corvus corax) in the wild. Nature Communications 2:1
Pika, Simone
2008. Gestures of apes and pre-linguistic human children: Similar or different?. First Language 28:2 ► pp. 116 ff.
Hopkins, William D., Jared P. Taglialatela & David A. Leavens
2007. Chimpanzees differentially produce novel vocalizations to capture the attention of a human. Animal Behaviour 73:2 ► pp. 281 ff.
Müller-Tomfelde, Christian
2007. Dwell-Based Pointing in Applications of Human Computer Interaction. In Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2007 [Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 4662], ► pp. 560 ff.
Leavens, David A., William D. Hopkins & Kim A. Bard
2005. Understanding the Point of Chimpanzee Pointing. Current Directions in Psychological Science 14:4 ► pp. 185 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 march 2026. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.
