Why We Conform

Are humans fundamentally helpful, or does coercion inevitably come with altruism? Julia Fischer examines this question in her review of Michael Tomasello's new book, Why We Cooperate

Animal minds: from computation to evolution.

notes: PMCID: PMC3427558types: Introductory Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tCopyright © 2012 The Royal Society. Post print version deposited in accordance with SHERPA RoMEO guidelines. The definitive version is available at: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/367/1603/2670.longIn the great Darwinian struggle for existence, all animals must tackle the problems posed by variable environments, be it finding and processing food, recognizing and attracting potential mates, avoiding predators, outcompeting rivals or navigating back to nesting sites. Although the mental processes by which different species deal with such challenges are varied, all animals share the fundamental problem of having to cope with the sheer abundance of information in the environment, much of which is likely to be irrelevant to the task at hand.David Phillips Fellowship from the BBSRC (A.T.)The Human Frontiers Science Programme Organization (U.G.

Individual variation in cognitive performance: developmental and evolutionary perspectives.

notes: PMCID: PMC3427550types: Journal Article; Meta-Analysis; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; ReviewAnimal cognition experiments frequently reveal striking individual variation but rarely consider its causes and largely ignore its potential consequences. Studies often focus on a subset of high-performing subjects, sometimes viewing evidence from a single individual as sufficient to demonstrate the cognitive capacity of a species. We argue that the emphasis on demonstrating species-level cognitive capacities detracts from the value of individual variation in understanding cognitive development and evolution. We consider developmental and evolutionary interpretations of individual variation and use meta-analyses of data from published studies to examine predictors of individual performance. We show that reliance on small sample sizes precludes robust conclusions about individual abilities as well as inter- and intraspecific differences. We advocate standardization of experimental protocols and pooling of data between laboratories to improve statistical rigour. Our analyses show that cognitive performance is influenced by age, sex, rearing conditions and previous experience. These effects limit the validity of comparative analyses unless developmental histories are taken into account, and complicate attempts to understand how cognitive traits are expressed and selected under natural conditions. Further understanding of cognitive evolution requires efforts to elucidate the heritability of cognitive traits and establish whether elevated cognitive performance confers fitness advantages in nature

Heterochrony in chimpanzee and bonobo spatial memory development

ObjectivesThe emergence of human‐unique cognitive abilities has been linked to our species’ extended juvenile period. Comparisons of cognitive development across species can provide new insights into the evolutionary mechanisms shaping cognition. This study examined the development of different components of spatial memory, cognitive mechanisms that support complex foraging, by comparing two species with similar life history that vary in wild ecology: bonobos (Pan paniscus) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).Materials and methodsSpatial memory development was assessed using a cross‐sectional experimental design comparing apes ranging from infancy to adulthood. Study 1 tested 73 sanctuary‐living apes on a task examining recall of a single location after a 1‐week delay, compared to an earlier session. Study 2 tested their ability to recall multiple locations within a complex environment. Study 3 examined a subset of individuals from Study 2 on a motivational control task.ResultsIn Study 1, younger bonobos and chimpanzees of all ages exhibited improved performance in the test session compared to their initial learning experience. Older bonobos, in contrast, did not exhibit a memory boost in performance after the delay. In Study 2, older chimpanzees exhibited an improved ability to recall multiple locations, whereas bonobos did not exhibit any age‐related differences. In Study 3, both species were similarly motivated to search for food in the absence of memory demands.DiscussionThese results indicate that closely related species with similar life history characteristics can exhibit divergent patterns of cognitive development, and suggests a role of socioecological niche in shaping patterns of cognition in Pan.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149316/1/ajpa23833_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149316/2/ajpa23833.pd

What You See Is What You Get? Exclusion Performances in Ravens and Keas

BACKGROUND:Among birds, corvids and parrots are prime candidates for advanced cognitive abilities. Still, hardly anything is known about cognitive similarities and dissimilarities between them. Recently, exclusion has gained increasing interest in comparative cognition. To select the correct option in an exclusion task, one option has to be rejected (or excluded) and the correct option may be inferred, which raises the possibility that causal understanding is involved. However, little is yet known about its evolutionary history, as only few species, and mainly mammals, have been studied. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:We tested ravens and keas in a choice task requiring the search for food in two differently shaped tubes. We provided the birds with partial information about the content of one of the two tubes and asked whether they could use this information to infer the location of the hidden food and adjust their searching behaviour accordingly. Additionally, this setup allowed us to investigate whether the birds would appreciate the impact of the shape of the tubes on the visibility of food. The keas chose the baited tube more often than the ravens. However, the ravens applied the more efficient strategy, choosing by exclusion more frequently than the keas. An additional experiment confirmed this, indicating that ravens and keas either differ in their cognitive skills or that they apply them differently. CONCLUSION:To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate that corvids and parrots may perform differently in cognitive tasks, highlighting the potential impact of different selection pressures on the cognitive evolution of these large-brained birds

The brain's connective core and its role in animal cognition

This paper addresses the question of how the brain of an animal achieves cognitive integration—that is to say how it manages to bring its fullest resources to bear on an ongoing situation. To fully exploit its cognitive resources, whether inherited or acquired through experience, it must be possible for unanticipated coalitions of brain processes to form. This facilitates the novel recombination of the elements of an existing behavioural repertoire, and thereby enables innovation. But in a system comprising massively many anatomically distributed assemblies of neurons, it is far from clear how such open-ended coalition formation is possible. The present paper draws on contemporary findings in brain connectivity and neurodynamics, as well as the literature of artificial intelligence, to outline a possible answer in terms of the brain's most richly connected and topologically central structures, its so-called connective core

Evaluating the function of wildcat faecal marks in relation to the defence of favourable hunting areas

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Ethology Ecology and Evolution on 2015, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/03949370.2014.905499To date, there have been no studies of carnivores that have been specifically designed to examine the function of scent marks in trophic resource defence, although several chemical communication studies have discussed other functions of these marks. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that faecal marks deposited by wildcats (Felis silvestris) serve to defend their primary trophic resource, small mammals. Field data were collected over a 2-year period in a protected area in northwestern Spain. To determine the small mammal abundance in different habitat types, a seasonal live trapping campaign was undertaken in deciduous forests, mature pine forests and scrublands. In each habitat, we trapped in three widely separated Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) cells. At the same time that the trapping was being performed, transects were conducted on foot along forest roads in each trapping cell and in one adjacent cell to detect fresh wildcat scats that did or did not have a scent-marking function. A scat was considered to have a presumed marking function when it was located on a conspicuous substrate, above ground level, at a crossroad or in a latrine. The number of faecal marks and the small mammal abundance varied by habitat type but not by seasons. The results of the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) indicated that small mammal abundance and habitat type were the factors that explained the largest degrees of variation in the faecal marking index (number of faecal marks in each cell/number of kilometres surveyed in each cell). This result suggests that wildcats defended favourable hunting areas. They mark most often where their main prey lives and so where they spend the most time hunting (in areas where their main prey is more abundant). This practice would allow wildcats to protect their main trophic resource and would reduce intraspecific trophic competitio

Old World Monkeys Compare to Apes in the Primate Cognition Test Battery

Understanding the evolution of intelligence rests on comparative analyses of brain sizes as well as the assessment of cognitive skills of different species in relation to potential selective pressures such as environmental conditions and social organization. Because of the strong interest in human cognition, much previous work has focused on the comparison of the cognitive skills of human toddlers to those of our closest living relatives, i.e. apes. Such analyses revealed that apes and children have relatively similar competencies in the physical domain, while human children excel in the socio-cognitive domain; in particular in terms of attention sharing, cooperation, and mental state attribution. To develop a full understanding of the evolutionary dynamics of primate intelligence, however, comparative data for monkeys are needed. We tested 18 Old World monkeys (long-tailed macaques and olive baboons) in the so-called Primate Cognition Test Battery (PCTB) (Herrmann et al. 2007, Science). Surprisingly, our tests revealed largely comparable results between Old World monkeys and the Great apes. Single comparisons showed that chimpanzees performed only better than the macaques in experiments on spatial understanding and tool use, but in none of the socio-cognitive tasks. These results question the clear-cut relationship between cognitive performance and brain size and – prima facie – support the view of an accelerated evolution of social intelligence in humans. One limitation, however, is that the initial experiments were devised to tap into human specific skills in the first place, thus potentially underestimating both true nonhuman primate competencies as well as species differences