Authors
Evan L MacLean, Brian Hare, Charles L Nunn, Elsa Addessi, Federica Amici, Rindy C Anderson, Filippo Aureli, Joseph M Baker, Amanda E Bania, Allison M Barnard, Neeltje J Boogert, Elizabeth M Brannon, Emily E Bray, Joel Bray, Lauren JN Brent, Judith M Burkart, Josep Call, Jessica F Cantlon, Lucy G Cheke, Nicola S Clayton, Mikel M Delgado, Louis J DiVincenti, Kazuo Fujita, Esther Herrmann, Chihiro Hiramatsu, Lucia F Jacobs, Kerry E Jordan, Jennifer R Laude, Kristin L Leimgruber, Emily JE Messer, Antonio C de A. Moura, Ljerka Ostojić, Alejandra Picard, Michael L Platt, Joshua M Plotnik, Friederike Range, Simon M Reader, Rachna B Reddy, Aaron A Sandel, Laurie R Santos, Katrin Schumann, Amanda M Seed, Kendra B Sewall, Rachael C Shaw, Katie E Slocombe, Yanjie Su, Ayaka Takimoto, Jingzhi Tan, Ruoting Tao, Carel P van Schaik, Zsófia Virányi, Elisabetta Visalberghi, Jordan C Wade, Arii Watanabe, Jane Widness, Julie K Young, Thomas R Zentall, Yini Zhao
Publication date
2014/5/20
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Volume
111
Issue
20
Pages
E2140-E2148
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Description
Cognition presents evolutionary research with one of its greatest challenges. Cognitive evolution has been explained at the proximate level by shifts in absolute and relative brain volume and at the ultimate level by differences in social and dietary complexity. However, no study has integrated the experimental and phylogenetic approach at the scale required to rigorously test these explanations. Instead, previous research has largely relied on various measures of brain size as proxies for cognitive abilities. We experimentally evaluated these major evolutionary explanations by quantitatively comparing the cognitive performance of 567 individuals representing 36 species on two problem-solving tasks measuring self-control. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that absolute brain volume best predicted performance across species and accounted for considerably more variance than brain volume controlling for body mass …
Scholar articles
EL MacLean, B Hare, CL Nunn, E Addessi, F Amici… - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2014