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Kirsty Graham

Ph.D., University of St. Andrews

 

Department of Psychology
Hunter College, Room 607 North
695 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10065
Tel: 212-396-6665
Email: kirsty.graham@hunter.cuny.edu 

 

 

Current Areas of Research:

Dr. Graham takes a comparative research approach to the evolution of gesture and language, studying how animals use their bodies to communicate. They have worked extensively with nonhuman primates, including bonobos, chimpanzees, and Sulawesi crested macaques, to uncover the meanings of these species' signals. Dr. Graham has also developed online experimental paradigms that assess how humans understand nonhuman communication. They are currently interested in how animals use body posture in communication and are also excited to expand their research program to study more distantly related species.

 

Selected Publications:

  • Graham KE & Hobaiter C (2023) Towards a great ape dictionary: Inexperienced humans understand common nonhuman ape gestures. PLOS Biology, 21(1), e3001939.

  • Graham KE, Badihi G, Safryghin A, Grund C & Hobaiter C (2022) A socio-ecological perspective on the gestural communication of great ape species, individuals, and social units. Ethology, Ecology, and Evolution, 34(3), 235-259.

  • Graham KE, Buryn-Weitzel J, Lahiff NJ, Wilke CP & Slocombe KE (2021) Detecting joint attention events in mother-infant dyads: sharing looks cannot be reliably identified by naïve third-party observers. PLoS ONE, 16(7), e0255241.

  • Graham KE, Furuichi T & Byrne RW (2020) Context, not sequence order, affects the meaning of bonobo (Pan paniscus) gestures. Gesture, 19(2/3), 336-365.

  • Graham KE, Wilke CP, Lahiff NJ & Slocombe KE (2019) Scratching Beneath the Surface: Intentionality in Great Ape Signal production. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 375.

  • Graham KE, Hobaiter C, Ounsley J, Furuichi T & Byrne RW (2018) Bonobo and chimpanzee gestures overlap extensively in meaning. PLoS biology, 16(2), e2004825.

  • Graham KE, Furuichi T & Byrne RW (2017) The gestural repertoire of the wild bonobo (Pan paniscus): a mutually understood communication system. Animal Cognition, 20(2), 171-177.