Stuart Watson

Dr. Stuart Watson

Postdoctoral Researcher

Comparative Communication and Cognition Group

I am a postdoctoral research fellow whose work broadly concerns behavioural flexibility in animals at all levels, but particularly in their communicative behaviour and the light this can shed on language evolution. I am currently part of the NCCR Evolving Language team, where I am working with Prof. Paul Widmer and Prof. Marta Manser to explore the evolutionary origins of arbitrariness in language. I am also particularly interested in cultural evolution, vocal learning, and data science. In my free time I enjoy watching animals, playing boardgames and relaxing with a nice cup of tea.

Personal website: www.stuartkwatson.wordpress.com

Google scholar page: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=KyUAVQMAAAAJ&hl

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1150-6288

ZORA Publication List

Publications

Watson, Stuart K; Mine, Joseph G; O’Neill, Louis G; Mueller, Jutta L; Russell, Andrew F; Townsend, Simon W (2023). Cognitive constraints on vocal combinatoriality in a social bird. iScience, 26(7):106977.
Lehoczky, Fanni; Andics, Attila; Kubinyi, Eniko; Passilongo, Daniela; Root-Gutteridge, Holly; Range, Friederika; Palacios Sanchez, Vicente; Schmidt, Lori; Townsend, Simon W; Watson, Stuart; Farago, Tamas (2023). Genetic distance from wolves affects family dogs’ reactions towards howls. Communications Biology, 6(129):1-10.
Watson, Stuart K; Filippi, Piera; Gasparri, Luca; Falk, Nikola; Tamer, Nicole; Widmer, Paul; Manser, Marta; Glock, Hans‐Johann (2022). Optionality in animal communication: a novel framework for examining the evolution of arbitrariness. Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 97(6):2057-2075.
Watson, Stuart K; Lambeth, Susan P; Schapiro, Steven J (2022). Innovative multi-material tool use in the pant-hoot display of a chimpanzee. Scientific Reports, 12:20605.
Garcia Arasco, Aitana; Manser, Marta; Watson, Stuart K; Kyabulima, Solomon; Radford, Andrew N; Cant, Michael A; Garcia, Maxime (2022). Testing the acoustic adaptation hypothesis with vocalizations from three mongoose species. Animal Behaviour, 187:71-95.
Watson, Stuart K; Burkart, Judith M; Schapiro, Steven J; Lambeth, Susan P; Mueller, Jutta L; Townsend, Simon W (2021). Reply to comment on “Nonadjacent dependency processing in monkeys, apes, and humans”. Science Advances, 7(30):eabj1517.
Vale, Gillian L; McGuigan, Nicola; Burdett, Emily; Lambeth, Susan P; Lucas, Amanda; Rawlings, Bruce; Schapiro, Steven J; Watson, Stuart K; Whiten, Andrew (2021). Why do chimpanzees have diverse behavioral repertoires yet lack more complex cultures? Invention and social information use in a cumulative task. Evolution and Human Behavior, 42(3):247-258.
Whiten, Andrew; Harrison, Rachel A; McGuigan, Nicola; Vale, Gillian L; Watson, Stuart K (2021). Collective knowledge and the dynamics of culture in chimpanzees. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 377:20200321.
Watson, Stuart K; Heesen, Raphaela; Hedwig, Daniela; Robbins, Martha M; Townsend, Simon W (2020). An exploration of Menzerath's law in wild mountain gorilla vocal sequences. Biology Letters, 16(10):20200380.
Townsend, Simon W; Watson, Stuart K; Slocombe, Katie E (2020). Flexibility in Great Ape Vocal Production. In: Hopper, Lydia M; Ross, Stephen R. Chimpanzees in Context. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 260-280.
Geen, Sam; Watson, Stuart K; Rosdahl, Joakim; Bieri, Rebekka; Klessen, Ralf S; Hennebelle, Patrick (2018). On the indeterministic nature of star formation on the cloud scale. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 481(2):2548-2569.
Watson, Stuart K; Townsend, Simon W; Range, Friederike (2017). Wolf howls encode both sender-and context-specific information. Animal Behaviour, 145:59-66.

Department of Comparative Language Science

Quicklinks und Sprachwechsel

Main navigation

Stuart Watson

ZORA Publication List

Download Options

Publications