Dr. Marlen Fröhlich

I am interested in the phylogeny, function and ontogeny of multimodal communication, with an emphasis on implications for the evolutionary origins of human language. Language is commonly narrowed down to speech, but human face-to-face communication is in fact an intrinsically multimodal phenomenon. Despite growing evidence that the communication of nonhuman primates, our main models for language evolution, is also inherently multimodal, most studies have focused on either gestures or vocalizations in isolation.

PhD thesis

Communicative complexity and development in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) in the wild, with Simone Pika, Humboldt Research Group „Evolution of communication“, MPI for Ornithology Seewiesen