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Cited by 69Primate Behavior and EcologyChild and Animal Learning DevelopmentCognitive Abilities and Testing

Monkeys and apes: Are their cognitive skills really so different?

Amici, Federica, Aureli, Filippo, Call, Josep·2010·American Journal of Physical Anthropology
DOI 10.1002/ajpa.21305
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Abstract

Differences in cognitive skills across taxa, and between monkeys and apes in particular, have been explained by different hypotheses, although these often are not supported by systematic interspecific comparisons. Here, we directly compared the cognitive performance of the four great apes and three monkey species (spider monkeys, capuchin monkeys, and long‐tailed macaques), differing in their phylogenetic‐relatedness and socioecology. We tested subjects on their ability to remember object locations (memory task), track object displacements (transposition task), and obtain out‐of‐reach rewards (support task). Our results showed no support for an overall clear‐cut distinction in cognitive skills between monkeys and apes as species performance varied substantially across tasks. Although we found differences in performance at tracking object displacements between monkeys and apes, interspecific differences in the other two tasks were better explained in terms of differential socioecology, especially differential levels of fission–fusion dynamics. A cluster analysis using mean scores of each condition of the three tasks for each species suggested that the only dichotomy might be between members of the genus Pan and the rest of the tested species. These findings evidence the importance of using multiple tasks across multiple species in a comparative perspective to test different explanations for the enhancement of specific cognitive skills. Am J Phys Anthropol 143:188–197, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

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  • Reviews by Tomasello and Call (1997) and Deaner et al. (2006) relied on indirect comparisons because few studies existed that directly compared monkey and ape species on the same tasks.

    “Although these reviews synthesized tremendous amounts of research and suggested important hypotheses to test, they relied on indirect comparisons simply because few studies existed that directly compared monkey and ape species on the same tasks (e.g., Amici et al. 2010).”

    From How does cognition evolve? Phylogenetic comparative psychology (2012) · cites this paper as Amici et al. 2010

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Authors
Amici, F., Aureli, F., & Call, J.
Affiliations
  • Utrecht University (NL)
  • Liverpool John Moores University (GB)
  • Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (DE)
Corresponding author
Amici, Federica
ORCID
Venue
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2010-09-13
Volume
143
Issue
2
Pages
188-197
ISSN
  • 0002-9483 (ISSN-L)
  • 1096-8644
DOI
10.1002/ajpa.21305
OpenAlex
W1987668681
Cited by
69
References
94
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 8
FWCI
6.96
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor (vor)
Locations
  • American Journal of Physical Anthropology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (submittedVersion)
  • MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
Keywords
comparative cognition, monkeys, great apes, cross-species comparison, object location memory, socioecology, fission-fusion dynamics, Pan, spider monkeys, capuchin monkeys, Macaca fascicularis, cognitive evolution
MeSH terms
Animals, Behavior, Animal, Cognition, Female, Macaca, Male, Memory, Phylogeny, Task Performance and Analysis, Hominidae, Cluster Analysis, Statistics, Nonparametric, Platyrrhini

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