Caroline Fryns

Research interest

I am a PhD candidate and am part of the NCCR evolving language project. The aim of my research is to tease apart the roles of directed vocalizations and the surrounding vocal environment have on the vocal ontogeny of infant chimpanzees. I am particularly interested in the presence or absence of infant-directed vocalizations. The project will mainly focus on call acquisition and comprehension. I am collecting both observational and experimental data on a wild chimpanzee community in Budongo Forest (Uganda).

My research is part of a wider initiative which sets out to better understand the evolution of Human language by the means of comparative studies between Human infants, bonobos and chimpanzees. As such, I am supervised by Klaus Zuberbühler (UniNE), Simon Townsend (UZH), Sabine Stoll (UZH) and Carel van Schaik (UZH).