We argue that dynamic-systems theory (DST) offers researchers a promising alternative to the information-processing framework that has dominated the study of primate social communication. DST rejects a linear view of communication in which a sender transmits a signal to a receiver, who then decodes that signal for its information content. Instead, dynamic-systems theory envisions communication as an intrinsically creative process that unfolds as communicating partners continuously adjust their behaviors to one another. This process of continual adjustment, termed co-regulation, can be identified in the social communication of the African great apes. When researchers study communication in terms of co-regulated social interaction, new insights and research questions emerge that may help anthropologists better understand the nature of the vocal and gestural behaviors of our closest living relatives.
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