Vocal taking turns is premature at birth and improved by the postnatal phonetic environment in marmosets

Runze Qi; Yingxu Lin; Shanshan Liu; Xinyuan Cao; Min Xie; Chencen Yu; Hao Sun; Lixia Gao; Xinjian Li

doi:10.1093/nsr/nwaf162

Vocal taking turns is premature at birth and improved by the postnatal phonetic environment in marmosets

Natl Sci Rev. 2025 Apr 24;12(7):nwaf162. doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwaf162. eCollection 2025 Jul.

Authors

Runze Qi^{1

2

3}, Yingxu Lin^{1

4}, Shanshan Liu^{1

4}, Xinyuan Cao¹, Min Xie¹, Chencen Yu¹, Hao Sun^{1

4}, Lixia Gao^{1

2

3

4}, Xinjian Li^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurology of the Second Affiliated Hospital and Interdisciplinary Institute of Neuroscience and Technology, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 310020, China.
² Nanhu Brain-computer Interface Institute, Hangzhou 311100, China.
³ NHC and CAMS Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, MOE Frontier Science Center for Brain Science and Brain-machine Integration, School of Brain Science and Brain Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Biomedical Engineering of the Ministry of Education, College of Biomedical Engineering and Instrument Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.

Abstract

Precisely time-controlled vocal antiphony is crucial for the social communication of arboreal marmosets. However, it remains unclear when this antiphony is formed and how postnatal acoustic environments affect its development. In the present study, we systematically recorded the emitted calls of infant marmosets in an antiphonal calling scenario from postnatal day one (P1) to postnatal 10 weeks (W10). We found that infant marmosets emit most types of adult calls and engage in turn-taking as early as in P1. In addition, parent-reared infants emitted more antiphonal phee calls than hand-reared marmosets in W10. Call transitions in parent-reared W10 animals mainly occurred between phee calls or from phee calls to other call types. In contrast, P1 and hand-reared W10 marmosets displayed call transitions among various types of calls. These findings suggest that the antiphony in marmosets emerges on P1 but remains immature, and the antiphony skills can be improved by development environments, especially by the vocal feedback from parents.

Keywords: antiphony; marmoset; non-human primate; taking turns; vocal communication; vocal development; vocalization.