Social monitoring in wild capuchins

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Human cognitive abilities are certainly remarkable. Yet, studies on the cognition of other large-brained animals demonstrate that the cognitive abilities of humans are not exceptional. Rather, humans are just at the extreme end of the cognitive spectrum. As such, research on cognitive evolution in other large-brained primates can offer insight into the origin of human cognitive abilities. In this project, researchers will probe the breadth and depth of social cognition in arguably one of the “smartest” primates outside of apes and humans – white-faced capuchin monkeys. This project supports a unique field station where researchers have combined a diverse biological field site with an on-site environmental endocrinology laboratory and training facility for students. This combination of field site and laboratory offers a field school each year. Therefore the project supports numerous student training opportunities in STEM research and fosters an international network of scientific researchers and collaborative relationships. One of the leading hypotheses for explaining advanced primate intelligence is the "social complexity hypothesis." This is the idea that the challenges of living in large, complex social groups will select for animals with larger brains and greater cognition. However, current methods use “group size” as a proxy for social complexity, a variable that does not capture variation in social complexity for most primate species. By contrast, social knowledge – knowledge about the identity and relationships of other individuals – captures social complexity much better because it tracks the information animals use in their everyday lives. Importantly, the origin of large brains in capuchins is independent from that of apes, and thus capuchins offer a second event for researchers to identify selective pressures that led to large brains and sophisticated cognition. In this project, the researchers will examine what social knowledge capuchins have and how they use it day to day. Specifically, they will conduct playback experiments using vocal sequences to test whether white-faced capuchins understand the relative dominance ranks and kin relations of others in their group (“depth” of social knowledge) and whether they recognize and know the ranging patterns of others from neighboring groups (“breadth” of social knowledge). This program will provide data on one of the most important taxa for comparative analyses of primate cognition. The project is jointly supported by NSF's Biological Anthropology program and Behavioral Systems Cluster.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.