Research shows that humans, monkeys, and apes have social knowledge to track social dynamics. Humans communicate events by emphasizing agents, actions, and patients in a sentence structure. Cross-linguistic studies reveal a universal bias for agents. An eye-tracking study with humans and apes showed quick identification of agents and patients in social scenes, particularly with food. Infants struggle to identify information quickly. Apes can identify agents and patients like humans, suggesting a shared ability to deconstruct events. This ability may have evolved from the social world in which humans and apes lived. The question remains why other primates don’t communicate events in the same way.
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How primate eye tracking reveals new insights into the evolution of language
