NDLI: A socioecological perspective on primate cognition, past and present

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A socioecological perspective on primate cognition, past and present

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Cunningham, Elena Janson, Charles
Copyright Year	2007
Abstract	The papers in this special issue examine the relationship between social and ecological cognition in primates. We refer to the intersection of these two domains as socioecological cognition. Examples of socioecological cognition include socially learned predator alarm calls and socially sensitive foraging decisions. In this review we consider how primate cognition may have been shaped by the interaction of social and ecological influences in their evolutionary history. The ability to remember distant, out-of-sight locations is an ancient one, shared by many mammals and widespread among primates. It seems some monkeys and apes have evolved the ability to form more complex representations of resources, integrating “what-where-how much” information. This ability allowed anthropoids to live in larger, more cohesive groups by minimizing competition for limited resources between group members. As group size increased, however, competition for resources also increased, selecting for enhanced social skills. Enhanced social skills in turn made a more sophisticated relationship to the environment possible. The interaction of social and ecological influences created a spiraling effect in the evolution of primate intelligence. In contrast, lemurs may not have evolved the ability to form complex representations which would allow them to consider the size and location of resources. This lack in lemur ecological cognition may restrict the size of frugivorous lemur social groups, thereby limiting the complexity of lemur social life. In this special issue, we have brought together two review papers, five field studies, and one laboratory study to investigate the interaction of social and ecological factors in relation to foraging. Our goal is to stimulate research that considers social and ecological factors acting together on cognitive evolution, rather than in isolation. Cross fertilization of experimental and observational studies from captivity and the field is important for increasing our understanding of this relationship.
Starting Page	273
Ending Page	281
Page Count	9
File Format	PDF
ISSN	14359448
Journal	Animal Cognition
Volume Number	10
Issue Number	3
e-ISSN	14359456
Language	English
Publisher	Springer-Verlag
Publisher Date	2007-03-27
Publisher Place	Berlin, Heidelberg
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Subject Keyword	Cognition Foraging Evolution Comparative Anthropoids Lemurs Human Physiology Zoology Behavioural Sciences
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Experimental and Cognitive Psychology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

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