ReviewBiological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society2025
Assessing flexibility in meaning and context in non-human communication.
Review in Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Elephant gestural communication during agonistic interactions: repertoire, intentionality, and goals.Animal cognition · 2026Article
- Relationship Value, Emotion, and Uncertainty Shape Conflict-Resolution Communication in a Wild Primate.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The concept of flexibility in communication is central to reconstructing the evolutionary history of language, and grappling with "contextual flexibility" in particular is pivotal to address implications for pragmatics-first accounts of language evolution. Despite significant advances in the field, research is hindered by definitional inconsistencies and methodological gaps across modalities. We build on recent frameworks to propose further, detailed methods for studying contextual and functional variability, incorporating modality-agnostic and standardised terminology to facilitate cross-species comparisons. Our approach includes a detailed classification of communicative contexts and outcomes, offering practical methods to disentangle context from function and meaning. By integrating insights across behavioural ecology and comparative psychology, we aim to enhance the comparability of findings and provide a robust foundation for exploring the evolutionary trajectory of communicative flexibility and pragmatics.
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What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.