S. Townsend

Most-cited papers

Chimpanzee Alarm Call Production Meets Key Criteria for Intentionality
A. Schel, S. Townsend, Z. Machanda, K. Zuberbühler +1 more
2013PLoS ONE286 citations Open access
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Functionally Referential Communication in Mammals: The Past, Present and the Future
S. Townsend, M. Manser
2013229 citations
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Exorcising Grice's ghost: an empirical approach to studying intentional communication in animals
S. Townsend, S. Koski, R. Byrne, K. Slocombe +20 more
2017Biological Reviews of The Cambridge Philosophical Society198 citations Open access
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Vocal learning in the functionally referential food grunts of chimpanzees.
S. K. Watson, S. Townsend, A. Schel, C. Wilke +4 more
2015Current Biology195 citations Open access
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Female-led infanticide in wild chimpanzees.
S. Townsend, K. Slocombe, Melissa Emery Thompson, K. Zuberbühler
2007Current Biology146 citations Open access
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Chimpanzee food calls are directed at specific individuals
A. Schel, Z. Machanda, S. Townsend, K. Zuberbühler +1 more
2013134 citations Open access
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Meaningful call combinations and compositional processing in the southern pied babbler
S. Engesser, A. Ridley, S. Townsend
2016Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America132 citations Open access
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Female Chimpanzees Use Copulation Calls Flexibly to Prevent Social Competition
S. Townsend, T. Deschner, K. Zuberbühler
2008PLoS ONE122 citations Open access
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Production of food-associated calls in wild male chimpanzees is dependent on the composition of the audience
K. Slocombe, T. Kaller, Laurel Turman, S. Townsend +3 more
2010Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology116 citations Open access
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Multimodal communication and language origins: integrating gestures and vocalizations
Marlen Fröhlich, Christine Sievers, S. Townsend, T. Gruber +1 more
2019Biological Reviews of The Cambridge Philosophical Society114 citations Open access
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Language evolution: syntax before phonology?
K. Collier, B. Bickel, C. van Schaik, M. Manser +1 more
2014Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences111 citations Open access
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The function of nonlinear phenomena in meerkat alarm calls
S. Townsend, M. Manser
2011Biology Letters100 citations Open access
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Wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) distinguish between different scream types: evidence from a playback study
K. Slocombe, S. Townsend, K. Zuberbühler
2009Animal Cognition95 citations
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Compositionality in animals and humans
S. Townsend, S. Engesser, S. Stoll, K. Zuberbühler +1 more
2018PLoS Biology88 citations Open access
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Combinatoriality in the vocal systems of nonhuman animals.
S. Engesser, S. Townsend
2019Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science85 citations Open access
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Meerkat close calls encode group-specific signatures, but receivers fail to discriminate
S. Townsend, Linda I. Hollén, M. Manser
201076 citations Open access
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Experimental Evidence for Phonemic Contrasts in a Nonhuman Vocal System
S. Engesser, J. Crane, James L. Savage, Andrew F. Russell +1 more
2015PLoS Biology69 citations Open access
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All clear? Meerkats attend to contextual information in close calls to coordinate vigilance
S. Townsend, Markus Zöttl, M. Manser
2011Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology68 citations Open access
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A simple test of vocal individual recognition in wild meerkats
S. Townsend, Colin Allen, M. Manser
2012Biology Letters65 citations Open access
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Nonlinearities in Meerkat Alarm Calls Prevent Receivers from Habituating
Denise Karp, M. Manser, Elizabeth M. Wiley, S. Townsend
201460 citations Open access
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Flexible alarm calling in meerkats: the role of the social environment and predation urgency
S. Townsend, M. Rasmussen, T. Clutton-Brock, M. Manser
201252 citations Open access
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Call combinations and compositional processing in wild chimpanzees
Maël M. Leroux, A. Schel, C. Wilke, Bosco Chandia +3 more
2023Nature Communications51 citations Open access
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Audience effects in chimpanzee copulation calls
S. Townsend, Klaus Zuberbűhler
2009Communicative & Integrative Biology51 citations Open access
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The function of non-linear phenomena in meerkat alarm calls
S. Townsend, M. Manser
201149 citations
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Common evolutionary origin of acoustic communication in choanate vertebrates
Gabriel Jorgewich-Cohen, S. Townsend, L. Padovese, N. Klein +7 more
2022Nature Communications46 citations Open access
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Social monitoring via close calls in meerkats
S. Reber, S. Townsend, M. Manser
2013Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences39 citations Open access
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Acoustic cues to identity and predator context in meerkat barks
S. Townsend, B. Charlton, M. Manser
201438 citations Open access
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Call concatenation in wild meerkats
K. Collier, S. Townsend, M. Manser
201737 citations Open access
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Nonadjacent dependency processing in monkeys, apes, and humans
S. K. Watson, Judith M Burkart, S. Schapiro, S. Lambeth +2 more
2020Science Advances36 citations Open access
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A survey of the context and structure of high- and low-amplitude calls in mammals
Morgan L. Gustison, S. Townsend
201533 citations Open access
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Vocal signals facilitate cooperative hunting in wild chimpanzees
J. Mine, K. Slocombe, E. Willems, I. Gilby +6 more
2022Science Advances32 citations Open access
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The Information Content of Wolf (and Dog) Social Communication
T. Faragó, S. Townsend, F. Range
201432 citations
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Wolf Howling Is Mediated by Relationship Quality Rather Than Underlying Emotional Stress
Francesco Mazzini, S. Townsend, Z. Virányi, F. Range
2013Current Biology31 citations Open access
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The function and evolution of child-directed communication
J. Schick, Caroline Fryns, Franziska Wegdell, M. Laporte +4 more
2022PLoS Biology28 citations Open access
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Call combinations in great apes and the evolution of syntax
Maël M. Leroux, S. Townsend
2020Animal Behavior and Cognition28 citations Open access
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Chestnut-crowned babbler calls are composed of meaningless shared building blocks
S. Engesser, J. Holub, Louis G. O'Neill, Andrew F. Russell +1 more
2019Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America28 citations Open access
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Copulation Calls in Female Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) Convey Identity but Do Not Accurately Reflect Fertility
S. Townsend, T. Deschner, K. Zuberbühler
2011International journal of primatology27 citations Open access
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Beyond bigrams: call sequencing in the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) vocal system
A. Bosshard, J. Burkart, Paola Merlo, C. Cathcart +2 more
2024Royal Society Open Science24 citations Open access
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Wild dwarf mongooses produce general alert and predator-specific alarm calls
K. Collier, A. Radford, S. Townsend, M. Manser
201724 citations Open access
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An exploration of Menzerath's law in wild mountain gorilla vocal sequences
S. K. Watson, Raphaela Heesen, Daniela Hedwig, M. Robbins +1 more
2020Biology Letters22 citations Open access
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Call combinations in chimpanzees: a social tool?
Maël M. Leroux, Bosco Chandia, A. Bosshard, K. Zuberbühler +1 more
2022Behavioral Ecology21 citations Open access
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First observation of a chimpanzee with albinism in the wild: Social interactions and subsequent infanticide
Maël M. Leroux, G. Monday, Bosco Chandia, J. Akankwasa +6 more
2021American Journal of Primatology20 citations Open access
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Dwarf mongoose alarm calls: investigating a complex non-human animal call
K. Collier, A. Radford, S. Stoll, S. K. Watson +3 more
2020Proceedings of the Royal Society B19 citations Open access
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Investigating the potential for call combinations in a lifelong vocal learner
Sarah L. Walsh, S. Townsend, Kate Morgan, A. Ridley
2019Ethology19 citations Open access
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Reply to Fischer et al.
S. K. Watson, S. Townsend, A. Schel, C. Wilke +4 more
2015Current Biology19 citations Open access
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Element repetition rates encode functionally distinct information in pied babbler ‘clucks’ and ‘purrs’
S. Engesser, A. Ridley, S. Townsend
2017Animal Cognition18 citations Open access
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From collocations to call-ocations: using linguistic methods to quantify animal call combinations
A. Bosshard, Maël M. Leroux, Nicholas Lester, B. Bickel +2 more
2021Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology17 citations Open access
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Wolf howls encode both sender- and context-specific information
S. K. Watson, S. Townsend, F. Range
2018Animal Behaviour17 citations Open access
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Communication: Animal Steps on the Road to Syntax?
Andrew F. Russell, S. Townsend
2017Current Biology15 citations Open access
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Chimpanzee gestural exchanges share temporal structure with human language.
G. Badihi, Kirsty E. Graham, C. Grund, A. Safryghin +12 more
2024Current Biology14 citations Open access
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