Development and Evolution of Cognition

What we study

The evolution of high-level cognition remains one of the biggest unsolved questions in evolutionary biology. To understand how high-level cognition evolved, we need to understand how cognition translates into ecologically-relevant skills and abilities, which provide fitness benefits. Interestingly, in large brained species, offspring are often less competent at birth, and must learn how to become fully functioning adults across extended developmental periods. This introduces a unique evolutionary problem: larger brained species – who are often more cognitively advanced – depend on specific developmental inputs to acquire skills and knowledge for survival. This phenomenon remains poorly understood and is the key focus of the Development and Evolution of Cognition Group. Our research aims to address this question by researching the development, cognition, and skills of large-brained species.

Orangutans as our main study species

Our current research focus lies on the development of cognitive performance, ecological skills, and cultural repertoires in immature Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii). We are particularly interested in how social and environmental factors affect the development of these different aspects of cognition. Orangutans have the slowest development of any non-human primate species, high cognitive abilities, and rely on many complex ecological skills. Furthermore, orangutans show a very variable social system ranging from semi-solitary to fission-fusion with changeable levels of social tolerance. These factors make orangutans especially interesting and suitable for our research. Through the SUAQ project, we have already collected a unique, extended data-set of the behaviors of wild orangutans in the Suaq Balimbing forest in South Aceh, Indonesia, spanning several decades. Through the SUAQ project, we continue to collect data on immature orangutans, mothers, and other adults, and use this data to address enduring questions surrounding their skills and development.

Comparative research between orangutan species and beyond

To fully understand the evolution of high-level cognition – and its relationship with skill development - it is crucial to look across a wider variety of taxa. We perform comparative research using data from other orangutan populations, great ape species, and an extended number of mammal and bird species. This research is crucial for understanding the broader patterns between cognition, social systems, ecology and life history. Through such comparisons, we are able to identify fundamental and recurrent processes in cognitive evolution.

Ongoing and about to be started research projects

The Evolutionary Roots of Curiosity, Innovation, and the Development of Great ape Cognitive Performance

With this project, we investigate the interplay between cognitive performance and the psychological motivation of curiosity in wild and captive orangutans and chimpanzees, as well as in humans from different societies. In the framework of the project, we will correlate individuals’ cognitive performance and curiosity levels with their social and environmental developmental histories. We aim to measure cognitive performance across species and settings with a universal test, before quantifying how cognitive performance translates into sets of learned skills and fitness parameters. Understanding how curiosity and cognition interact, and how they develop across species, will shed light on what sparked the evolution of human curiosity, and our unique cognitive abilities. This project is co-funded by the Volkswagen Foundation in the frame of a Freigeist Fellowship grant.
This project is carried out within the remit of a Postdoc project of Dr. Isabelle Laumer, and the PhD projects of Nora Slania, and Adriana Luna. We have spots available for MSc and BSc student fieldwork-based or data-based subprojects.

Orangutan Ranging Skill Development

One of the major challenges that immature orangutans face when they first leave their mothers is knowing where and when they can find food. This project investigates the development of ranging competence, including the development of cognitive maps, planning and decision making in daily movement trajectories. Through analyzing how individuals learn to navigate through their home ranges to optimize food intake, reduce travel distances, and identify nest locations, will provide further insight into orangutan cognition. For this project, we rely on long-term ranging, behavioral and environmental data that have been collected at Suaq Balimbing since the 1990s, as well as recently collected nutritional data.
The Orangutan Ranging Skill Development project is conducted in the frame of the PhD project of Emma Lokuciejewski. We have spots available for MSc student fieldwork-based subprojects.

Orangutan Social Learning

Our previous work showed that orangutans acquire most of their ecological skills through a combination of social learning and socially-induced independent practice. We are now using state-of-the-art methods to understand the relative importance of social learning for skill acquisition, as well as the contexts which influence social learning behaviors. This includes understanding how immatures choose role models, and how the context and nature of information (e.g. food complexity, social proximity, individual sex, etc.) influence learning. We are also investigating how mothers adjust their behaviors to foster skill acquisition of their offspring.
This project is being carried out in the remit of a Postdoc project of Dr. Elliot Howard-Spink, and through a number of MSc and BSc theses, for which we are regularly taking on new students. These projects can include field work or can be based on already collected data.

Immigrant orangutan males as cultural vectors

The long-distance dispersal of male orangutans may be one way through which behavioral repertoires are being spread throughout the population. Within this project, we are investigating the behavioral strategies individuals use to cope with the challenges of migration, ultimately permitting them to benefit from the resources and opportunities of new locations. Our goal is to examine how social information transmission between native and immigrant individuals affect the integration and survival of immigrants in their host communities. This project aims to shed light on which factors influence cultural exchange, tolerance, and xenophobia during human evolution.
This project is currently conducted in the frame of the PhD project of Julia Mörchen at Leipzig University and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and several MSc projects. It is based on a collaboration between Dr. Caroline Schuppli, Prof. Dr. Michael Krützen from the University of Zürich and Prof. Dr. Anja Widig from Leipzig University and the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

Orangutan mothering behavior and its effects on offspring

Young orangutans at Suaq spend the first 8-9 years in constant association with their mothers. During this time, immatures socially-learn information from their mothers in a variety of ways. Variation in mothering behavior may therefore influence the pace of development of immatures, including their age of first independence, and the likely survival of offspring. In turn, these factors will influence the lifetime evolutionary fitness of mothers. Using our extensive long-term and cross-sectional data, we aim to investigate the dimensions of mothering behaviors, how mothering styles vary between individuals, and potential effects of mothering style on offspring development in orangutans.
This research is being conducted as part of the postdoc project of Dr. Revathe Thillaikumar. We have spots available for MSc and BSc student fieldwork-based or data-based subprojects.