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How does cognition evolve? Phylogenetic comparative psychology

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Abstract

Now more than ever animal studies have the potential to test hypotheses regarding how cognition evolves. Comparative psychologists have developed new techniques to probe the cognitive mechanisms underlying animal behavior, and they have become increasingly skillful at adapting methodologies to test multiple species. Meanwhile, evolutionary biologists have generated quantitative approaches to investigate the phylogenetic distribution and function of phenotypic traits, including cognition. In particular, phylogenetic methods can quantitatively (1) test whether specific cognitive abilities are correlated with life history (e.g., lifespan), morphology (e.g., brain size), or socio-ecological variables (e.g., social system), (2) measure how strongly phylogenetic relatedness predicts the distribution of cognitive skills across species, and (3) estimate the ancestral state of a given cognitive trait using measures of cognitive performance from extant species. Phylogenetic methods can also be used to guide the selection of species comparisons that offer the strongest tests of a priori predictions of cognitive evolutionary hypotheses (i.e., phylogenetic targeting). Here, we explain how an integration of comparative psychology and evolutionary biology will answer a host of questions regarding the phylogenetic distribution and history of cognitive traits, as well as the evolutionary processes that drove their evolution.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Sara Shettleworth and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on a previous draft of this article. We thank Natalie Cooper for advice regarding phylogenetic comparative methods. This work was supported by the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) through support of a working group lead by Charlie Nunn and Brian Hare. NESCent is supported by the NSF #EF-0905606. This work was also supported in part by European Research Commission Advanced Grant Agreement 233297 and National Science Foundation grants NSF-BCS-08-27552-02 and NSF-BCS-10-25172 to B.A.H. and National Science Foundation grant NSF- BCS-0923791 to C.L.N. For training in phylogenetic comparative methods, we thank the AnthroTree Workshop (supported by NSF BCS-0923791).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Box 90383, Durham, NC, 27708, USA

    Evan L. MacLean, Brian A. Hare, Christine M. Drea, Michael L. Platt, Alexandra G. Rosati, Kara K. Schroepfer & Jingzhi Tan

  2. Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Luke J. Matthews, Charles L. Nunn & Victoria Wobber

  3. Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Brian A. Hare, Elizabeth M. Brannon, Michael L. Platt & Alexandra G. Rosati

  4. Biology Department, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Rindy C. Anderson & Christine M. Drea

  5. Research Centre in Evolutionary Anthropology and Palaeoecology, School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK

    Filippo Aureli

  6. Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Elizabeth M. Brannon

  7. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany

    Josep Call, Daniel B. M. Haun & Esther Herrmann

  8. School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    Nathan J. Emery

  9. Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Daniel B. M. Haun

  10. Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK

    Daniel B. M. Haun

  11. Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Lucia F. Jacobs

  12. Department of Neurobiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA

    Michael L. Platt

  13. Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Aaron A. Sandel

  14. School of Psychology, University of St Andrews, Scotland, UK

    Amanda M. Seed

  15. Anthropological Institute and Museum, University of Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Carel P. van Schaik

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  1. Evan L. MacLean
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Correspondence to Evan L. MacLean.

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MacLean, E.L., Matthews, L.J., Hare, B.A. et al. How does cognition evolve? Phylogenetic comparative psychology. Anim Cogn 15, 223–238 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-011-0448-8

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