Primate Cognition

Soon after Charles Darwin formulated his theory of evolution, primate cognition became a major area of research. In this book, Michael Tomasello and Josep Call assess the current state of our knowledge about the cognitive skills of non-human primates. They integrate empirical findings on the topic from the beginning of the century to the present, placing this research in theoretical perspective. They begin with an examination of the way primates adapt to their physical world, mostly for the purpose of foraging. The second part of the book looks at primate social knowledge and focuses on the adaptations of primates to their social world for purposes of competition and cooperation. In the third section, the authors construct a general theory of primate cognition, distinguishing the cognition in primates from that of other mammals (human in particular). Their broad-ranging theory provides a guide for future research. Primate Cognition is an enlightening exploration of the cognitive capacities of our nearest primate relatives and a useful resource for a wide range of researchers and students in psychology, behavioral biology, primatology, and anthropology.

Table of Contents:
1: Introduction 1.1: Historical Background 1.2: The Ecological Approach to Cognition 1.3: Primates and Their Lives 1.4: Plan of the Book PART I: Knowledge of the Physical World 2: Space and Objects 2.1: Cognitive Mapping 2.2: Searching for Hidden Objects 2.3: Tracking Invisible Displacements 2.4: Other Forms of Spatial Understanding 2.5: What Primates Know About Space and Objects 3: Tools and Causality 3.1: Object Manipulation 3.2: Tool Use 3.3: Causal Understanding 3.4: What Primates Know About Tools and Causality 4: Features and Categories 4.1: Discrimination Learning 4.2: Natural Categories 4.3: Relational Categories 4.4: Classification 4.5: What Primates Know About Features and Categories 5: Quantities 5.1: Estimating Numerousness 5.2: Ordinality and Transitivity 5.3: Counting, Summation, and Proportions 5.4: Conservation of Quantities 5.5: What Primates Know About Quantities 6: Theories of Primate Physical Cognition 6.1: Summary of Primate Physical Cognition 6.2: Theories of Proximate Mechanism 6.3: Theories of Ultimate Causation 6.4: Directions for Future Research 6.5: Conclusion PART II: Knowledge of the Social World 7: Social Knowledge and Interaction 7.1: The Social Field 7.2: Coalitions and Alliances 7.3: Reciprocity and Interchange 7.4: Cooperative Problem-Solving 7.5: What Primates Know About Others in Social Interaction 8: Social Strategies and Communication 8.1: Social Strategies: Deception 8.2: Intentional Communication: Gestures 8.3: Intentional Communication: Vocalizations 8.4: Communication with Humans 8.5: What Primates Know About Others in Communication 9: Social Learning and Culture 9.1: Behavioral Traditions in the Wild 9.2: Social Learning of Instrumental Activities 9.3: Social Learning of Communicative Signals and Gestures 9.4: Teaching 9.5: What Primates Know About Others in Social Learning 10: Theory of Mind 10.1: Understanding Behavior and Perception 10.2: Understanding Intentions and Attention 10.3: Understanding Knowledge and Beliefs 10.4: Understanding Self 10.5: What Primates Know About Others' Mental States 11: Theories of Primate Social Cognition 11.1: Summary of Primate Social Cognition 11.2: Theories of Proximate Mechanism 11.3: Theories of Ultimate Causation 11.4: Directions for Future Research 11.5: Conclusion PART III: A Theory of Primate Cognition 12: Nonhuman Primate Cognition 12.1: Uniquely Primate Cognition 12.2: Issues of Proximate Mechanism 12.3: Issues of Ultimate Causation 12.4: The Structure of Primate Cognition 13: Human Cognition 13.1: Human Cognitive Development 13.2: Ontogenetic Processes 13.3: Phylogenetic Processes 13.4: The Structure of Human Cognition 14: Conclusion 14.1: Theory 14.2: Research 14.3: The Preservation of Primates Appendix References Author Index Species Index Subject Index

Review :
""Fin de siécle primatology is an exuberant, contentious, and ambitious discipline. . . . Those who took classes in primatology as few as 5 to 10 years ago would not recognize many of the current issues, a short list of examples being sexual selection, phylogenetic weighting in comparative analyses, gut-brain tradeoffs in the evolution of energy and tissue allocation, and reciprocity and retribution. Primate Cognition is a superb example of this new, reinvigorated primatology. . . . Tomasello and Call accomplish a meticulous merging of primate behavior, recent insights from cognitive and developmental psychology on the multidimensionality of cognitive abilities, and a good understanding of primate evolution to critically analyze what is and is not yet known about cognition in nonhuman primates."--American Journal of Human Biology "[The authors] divide the volume into fourteen chapters organized into three parts: Knowledge of the Physical World, Knowledge of the Social World, and A Theory of Primate Cognition, which summarizes their conclusions and briefly reviews human cognitive development. The book includes an introduction to the Order Primates (as well as an appendix on their taxonomy) and a brief history of studies of primate cognition."--The Quarterly Review of Biology "This book is a careful and critical review of the existing literature on the cognitive capacities of primates and other mammals and, at the same time, is a launching platform for a very important theory on what is unique for primates with respect to other mammals and what is unique for human beings with respect to nonhuman primates. . . . What makes this book appealing to any kind of reader and extremely useful as an educational tool is the way in which the material is organized, critically described, and summarized in useful tables and summaries. . . . In addition, the book has 50 pages of references, an authors' index, a species index, and a subject index, as well as a multitude of figures and photographs . . . I strongly recommend this marvellous book to ethologists, animal psychologists, developmental psychologists, cognitive scientists, and anyone just interested in primates."--The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology ""Fin de siécle primatology is an exuberant, contentious, and ambitious discipline. . . . Those who took classes in primatology as few as 5 to 10 years ago would not recognize many of the current issues, a short list of examples being sexual selection, phylogenetic weighting in comparative analyses, gut-brain tradeoffs in the evolution of energy and tissue allocation, and reciprocity and retribution. Primate Cognition is a superb example of this new, reinvigorated primatology. . . . Tomasello and Call accomplish a meticulous merging of primate behavior, recent insights from cognitive and developmental psychology on the multidimensionality of cognitive abilities, and a good understanding of primate evolution to critically analyze what is and is not yet known about cognition in nonhuman primates."--American Journal of Human Biology "[The authors] divide the volume into fourteen chapters organized into three parts: Knowledge of the Physical World, Knowledge of the Social World, and A Theory of Primate Cognition, which summarizes their conclusions and briefly reviews human cognitive development. The book includes an introduction to the Order Primates (as well as an appendix on their taxonomy) and a brief history of studies of primate cognition."--The Quarterly Review of Biology "This book is a careful and critical review of the existing literature on the cognitive capacities of primates and other mammals and, at the same time, is a launching platform for a very important theory on what is unique for primates with respect to other mammals and what is unique for human beings with respect to nonhuman primates. . . . What makes this book appealing to any kind of reader and extremely useful as an educational tool is the way in which the material is organized, critically described, and summarized in useful tables and summaries. . . . In addition, the book has 50 pages of references, an authors' index, a species index, and a subject index, as well as a multitude of figures and photographs . . . I strongly recommend this marvellous book to ethologists, animal psychologists, developmental psychologists, cognitive scientists, and anyone just interested in primates."--The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology