Prevarication

Humans can use language to communicate things they know not to be true in order to influence the behavior of others in complex and elaborate ways. The ability to deceive others is greatly enhanced by the availability of displaced reference (cf. “Displaced reference”). There are documented cases of deception among other primates species in order to gain privileged access to a known food source, or to avoid conflict situations. One way that this has been observed is by means of a “false” alarm call that leads con-specifics to climb trees when the food source is on the ground.