1. Home
  2. ANTH
  3. ANTH 436: Topics in Primate Cognition (Rev. C1)

ANTH 436: Topics in Primate Cognition (Rev. C1) Report a Broken Link

ANTH 436 explores whether nonhuman primates “see” the world in the same manner as do humans using similar (if perhaps less-developed) intellectual abilities, thought processes, and mental representations—and further asks whether primate cognition is truly unique among other animals.

Unit 2 – The primate brain: Where did it come from, and what’s so special about it? (Part 1: Costs, benefits and the (non)necessity of big brains for complex behaviour )

Reading 1: Isler, K & van Schaik, C. (2009). The Expensive Brain: A framework for explaining evolutionary changes in brain size.  Journal of Human Evolution, 57(4), 392–400.
Reading 2: Akst, J. (October 1, 2013). Send in the bots: Animal robots have become a unique tool for studying the behavior of their flesh-and-blood counterparts.The Scientist.

Unit 3 – The primate brain. Where did it come from, and what’s so special about it? (Part 2: Ecological and Social Origins)

READING 1: Milton, K. (1981).  Distribution patterns of tropical plant foods as an evolutionary stimulus to primate mental development. American Anthropologist, 83(3), 534–548.
READING 2: King, B. (1986).  Extractive foraging and the evolution of primate intelligence. Journal of Human Evolution, 1(4), 361–372.
READING 3: Lucas et al. (2007).  Perspectives on primate color vision. In Matthew J. Ravosa & Marian Dagosto (Eds.), Primate origins: Adaptations and evolution (pp. 805–819). Springer.

Unit 4 – The primate brain: Where did it come from, and what’s so special about it? (Part 3: Social Origins)

READING 2: Dunbar, R. (1998). The social brain hypothesis. Evolutionary Anthropology, 6(5). 178–190.
READING 3: Dunbar, R., & Shultz, S. (2007). Evolution in the social brain. Science, 317(5843), 1344–1347.
READING 4: Barrett, L., Henzi, P., & Rendall, D. (2007). Social brains, simple minds: Does social complexity really require cognitive complexity? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 362(1480), 561–575.

Unit 5 – What primates know about the physical world

FILM: NOVA–National Geographic. (2008). Ape Genius. WGBH, Boston.

Unit 6 – What primates know about their social world: Abstract social concepts

READING 2: Seyfarth, R. M., & Cheney, D. L. (2000). Social awareness in monkeys. American Zoologist, 40(6), 902–909.
READING 3: Bergman et al. (2003). Hierarchical classification by rank and kinship in baboons. Science, 302(5648), 1234–1236.
READING 4: Osvath, M., & Martin-Ordas, G. (2014). The future of future-oriented cognition in non-humans: Theory and the empirical case of the great apes. Philos. Trans. R. Lond. Soc. Bio. Sci., 369(1655), 20130486.

Unit 7 – Social knowledge continued: Theory of mind, intentionality, and perspective-taking

READING 2: Hare (2001) Can competitive paradigms increase the validity of experiments on primate social cognition? Animal Cognition 4: 269–280.
READING 3: Tomasello, M., Call, J., & Hare, B. (2003). Chimpanzees understand psychological states–the question is which ones and to what extent. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(4), 153–156.
READING 4: Povinelli, D. (2004). Behind the ape’s appearance: escaping anthropocentricism in the study of other minds. Daedalus, 133(1), 29–41.
READING 5: Tomasello, M., & Herrmann, E. (2010). Ape and human cognition: What's the difference? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(1), 3–8.
READING 6: Whiten, A. (2013). Humans are not alone in computing how others see the world. Animal Behaviour, 86(2), 213–221.

Unit 8 – Primate vocal communication: What do primate vocal signals "mean" and how do they "work"?

READING 2: Seyfarth, R., Cheney, D., & Marler, P. (1980).  Monkey responses to three different alarm calls: Evidence of predator classification and semantic communication. Science, 210(4471), 801–803.
READING 3: Owren, M., & Rendall, D. 2001. Sound on the rebound: Bringing form and function to the forefront in understanding nonhuman primate vocal signaling. Evolutionary Anthropology, 10, 58–71.
READING 4: Scarantino, A., & Clay, Z. (2015). Contextually variable signals can be functionally referential. Animal Behaviour, 100, e1–e8.
Playback with no response.

Playback with response.

Unit 9 – “Language” in apes and humans

READING 2: Hixson, M. D. (1998). Ape language research: A review and behavioral perspective. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 15, 17–39.
READING 3: Tomasello, M. (2007). If they're so good at grammar, then why don't they talk? Hints from apes' and humans' use of gestures. Language Learning and Development, 3(2), 133–156.
READING 4: Cohen, J. (2010). Boxed about the ears, ape language research field is still standing. Science, 328(5974), 38–39.

Unit 10 – “Culture” in primates and humans

READING 2: Thibaud, G., Reynolds, V., & Zuberbühler, K. (2010). The knowns and unknowns of chimpanzee culture. Communicative & Integrative Biology, 3(3), 221–223.
READING 3: Marshall-Pescini, S., & Whiten, A. (2008). Chimpanzees (pan troglodytes) and the question of cumulative culture: An experimental approach. Animal Cognition, 11(3). 449–456.
READING 4: Gruber, T., Zuberbühler, K., Clément, F., & van Schaik, C. (2015). Apes have culture but may not know that they do. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 91.

Unit 11 – Is there an adequate theory of primate cognition?

READING 2: Johnson, C. M. (2001). Distributed primate cognition: A review. Animal Cognition, 3(4). 167–183.
READING 3: Barrett, L. & Henzi, P. (2005). The social nature of primate cognition. Proc. R. Soc. B, 272(1575). 1865–1875.          

Articles for Assignment 1: Empirical Study Report

Amici, F., Aureli, F., Visalberghi, E., & Call, J. (2009). Spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) and capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) follow gaze around barriers: Evidence for perspective taking? Journal of Comparative Psychology, 123(4), 368–374.
Visalberghi, E., & Limongelli, L. (1994). Lack of comprehension of cause effect relations in tool-using capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 108(1), 15–22.
Greenberg, J. R., Hamann, K., Warneken, F., & Tomasello, M. (2010). Chimpanzee helping in collaborative and noncollaborative contexts. Animal Behaviour, 80(5), 873–880.
Dasser, V. (1988). A social concept in Java monkeys. Animal Behaviour, 36(1), 225–230.
Genty, E., & Roeder, J. J. (2006). Can lemurs learn to deceive? A study in the black lemur (Eulemur macaco). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 32(2), 196–200.
Liszkowski, U., Schäfer, M., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2009). Prelinguistic infants, but not chimpanzees, communicate about absent entities. Psychological Science, 20(5), 654–660.
Cheney, D., & Seyfarth, R. (1990). Attending to behaviour versus attending to knowledge: Examining monkeys' attribution of mental states. Animal Behaviour, 40(4), 742–753.

Selected Papers for Assignment 2: Research Paper Topic 1

Silk, J. B., Brosnan, S. F., Vonk, J., Henrich, J., Povinelli, D. J., Richardson, A. S., ... Schapiro, S. J. (2005). Chimpanzees are indifferent to the welfare of unrelated group members. Nature, 437(7063), 1357–1359.
Amici, F., Aureli, F., Visalberghi, E., & Call, J. (2009). Spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) and capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) follow gaze around barriers: Evidence for perspective taking? Journal of Comparative Psychology, 123(4), 368.
Hare, B., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2001). Do chimpanzees know what conspecifics know? Animal Behaviour, 61(1), 139–151.
Kano, F., & Call, J. (2014). Cross-species variation in gaze following and conspecific preference among great apes, human infants and adults. Animal Behaviour, 91, 137–150.
Povinelli, D. J. (2004). Behind the ape's appearance: Escaping anthropocentrism in the study of other minds. Daedalus, 133(1), 29–41.
Penn, D. C., Holyoak, K. J., & Povinelli, D. J. (2008). Darwin's mistake: Explaining the discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31(02), 109–130.
Povinelli, D. J., Bering, J. M., & Giambrone, S. (2000). Toward a science of other minds: Escaping the argument by analogy. Cognitive Science, 24(3), 509–541.
Cheney, D., & Seyfarth, R. (1990). Social awareness in monkeys. American Zoologist, 40(6), 902–909.
Blumstein, D. T. (1999). The evolution of functionally referential alarm communication: Multiple adaptations; multiple constraints. Evolution of Communication, 3(2), 135-147.
Heyes, C. M. (1998). Theory of mind in nonhuman primates. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 21(1), 101–114.

Selected Papers for Assignment 2: Research Paper Topic 2

Seyfarth, R. M., Cheney, D. L., & Marler, P. (1980). Monkey responses to three different alarm calls: Evidence of predator classification and semantic communication. Science, 210, 801–803.
Owren, M. J., & Rendall, D. (2001). Sound on the rebound: Bringing form and function to the forefront in understanding nonhuman primate vocal signaling. Evolutionary Anthropology, 10(2), 58–71.
Wheeler, B., & Fischer, J. (2012). Functionally referential signals: A promising paradigm whose time has passed? Evolutionary Anthropology, 21(5), 195–205.
Arnold, K., & Zuberbühler, K. (2006). Language evolution: Semantic combinations in primate calls. Nature, 441, 303.
Schel, A. M., Townsend, S. W., Machanda, Z., Zuberbühler, K., & Slocombe, K. E. (2013). Chimpanzee alarm call production meets key criteria for intentionality. PLoS One, 8(10), e76674.
Slocombe, K. E., & Zuberbühler, K. (2005). Functionally referential communication in a chimpanzee. Current Biology, 15(19), 1779–1784.
Ducheminsky, N., Henzi, S. P., & Barrett, L. (2014). Responses of vervet monkeys in large troops to terrestrial and aerial predator alarm calls. Behavioral Ecology, 25(6), 1474–1484.
Macedonia, J. M., & Evans, C. S. (1993). Essay on contemporary issues in ethology: Variation among mammalian alarm call systems and the problem of meaning in animal signals. Ethology, 93(3), 177–197.
Rendall, D., Owren, M. J., & Ryan, M. J. (2009). What do animal signals mean? Animal Behaviour, 78(2), 233–240.
Notman, H., & Rendall, D. (2005). Contextual variation in chimpanzee pant hoots and its implications for referential communication. Animal Behaviour, 70(1), 177–190.
Owren, M. J., Rendall, D., & Ryan, M. J. (2010). Redefining animal signaling: Influence versus information in communication. Biology & Philosophy, 25(5), 755–780.
Sievers, C., & Gruber, T. (2016). Reference in human and non-human primate communication: What does it take to refer? Animal Cognition, 1–10.

Selected Papers for Assignement 2: Research Paper Topic 3

Whiten, A., Goodall, J., McGrew, W. C., Nishida, T., Reynolds, V., Sugiyama, Y., Tutin, C. E. G., ... Boesch, C. (1999). Cultures in chimpanzees. Nature, 399, 682–685.
Marshall-Pescini, S., & Whiten, A. (2008). Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and the question of cumulative culture: An experimental approach. Animal Cognition, 11, 449–456.
Gruber, T. (2016). Great apes do not learn novel tool use easily: Conservatism, functional fixedness, or cultural influence? International Journal of Primatology, 37(2), 296–316.
Gruber, T., Potts, K. B., Krupenye, C., Byrne, M. R., Mackworth-Young, C., McGrew, W. C., ... Zuberbühler, K. (2012). The influence of ecology on chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) cultural behavior: A case study of five Ugandan chimpanzee communities. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 126(4), 446.
Gruber, T., Reynolds, V., & Zuberbühler, K. (2010). The knowns and unknowns of chimpanzee culture. Communicative & Integrative Biology, 3(3), 221–223.
Ottoni, E. B. (2015). Tool use traditions in nonhuman primates: The case of tufted capuchin monkeys. Human Ethology Bulletin, 30(1), 21–39.
McGrew, W. (2015). The cultured chimpanzee: Nonsense or breakthrough. Human Ethology Bulletin, 30(1), 40–51..