Event

Human social communication relies on complex vocal behavior, social cognition, and neural mechanisms that remain difficult to study experimentally in naturalistic settings. In this talk, I will present recent work establishing the common marmoset as a powerful model for studying the neural basis of social communication and behavior. First, I will describe our recent Science paper demonstrating vocal labeling of conspecifics by nonhuman primates. I will then discuss ongoing computational work using generative spoken language models to uncover latent structure and potential syntactic organization in marmoset vocal communication. Finally, I will present new unpublished findings revealing social spatial tuning in hippocampal neurons during freely moving natural social interactions, using generalized additive models (GAMs) to characterize neural coding in complex behavioral environments. Together, these results suggest that marmosets provide a unique experimental platform for investigating the evolution and neural basis of human social communication and cognition.