The component model of human parenting has been extensively used to study parents' interactions with their offspring and to examine variation across cultural contexts. The current study applies this model to nonhuman primates to investigate which forms of parenting humans share with other primates and how these interactions change over infants'…

It has been suggested that due to functional similarity, sortal object individuation might be a primordial form of psychological essentialism. For example, the relative independence of identity judgment from perceived surface features is a characteristic of essentialist reasoning. Also, infants engaging in sortal object individuation pay more…

Education plays an important role in developing positive conservation behavior in future generations. We promote the use of subtle anthropomorphism within a children's storybook as an effective method of increasing ecological knowledge of a target primate species. We delivered an education programme to 170 children in Indonesia from wherein we…

Despite scientific evidence suggesting close phylogenetic relationship between chimpanzees and humans, the inclusion of these apes in the genus "Homo" is controversial. Several tools have been used to analyse this issue such as fossils, molecular clock and genome. This work intended to understand the biology teachers' conceptions about…

The present study investigates the human-specificity of the orienting system that allows neonates to look preferentially at faces. Three experiments were carried out to determine whether the face-perception system that is present at birth is broad enough to include both human and nonhuman primate faces. The results demonstrate that the newborns…

The aim of this essay is to elucidate the relevance of cross-species comparisons for the investigation of human behavior and its development. The focus is on the comparison of human children and another group of primates, the non-human great apes, with special attention to their cognitive skills. Integrating a comparative and developmental…

There is a "clash of civilizations" going on in the information field--a clash characterized by a brash upstart, Google, and its attendant creations, Google Scholar and Google Books, and the old guard represented by the library world. Librarians who deprecate Google Scholar or simply ignore the Google phenomenon do so at their own risk. Google…

Nearly all primate species are globally threatened. Conservation approaches need to focus on local people and users of resources from the habitats of the apes. Students worldwide should become aware of the context and relationships in school, and they should change their usage and behaviour as the ultimate goals. This study explored the…

Among species recovery tools available, re-introduction of animals to the wild is one of the more complex. Since the mid-1990s two successful great ape re-introductions have taken place in the Republic of Congo, leading some conservationists to revisit re-introduction as a strategy. This research explored the role of conservation education and…

In the summer of 2008, the Spanish legislature resolved to grant great apes (though not all simians) basic human rights. While the decision to grant such rights came about largely through the lobbying efforts of the Great Ape Project (GAP), the decision has potential reverberations throughout the scientific world and beyond in its implications for…

Co-existing with wildlife and maintaining rural livelihoods are common challenges in remote villages in Japan. The authors assess the effects of the Monkey-Persimmon Environmental Education Program developed to reduce wildlife conflicts and to revitalize a community in Nagano Prefecture. Development of a logic model helped guide interviews with…

In a previous study, Adachi, Kuwahata, Fujita, Tomonaga & Matsuzawa demonstrated that infant Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) form cross-modal representations of conspecifics but not of humans. However, because the subjects in the experiment were raised in a large social group and had considerably less exposure to humans than to…

Reviews Barbara J. King's detailed observations of free-ranging baboons in Amboseli, Kenya; these observations contain a mass of recent research and report studies of divergent theories in primatology and paleontology. King's studies supply direct evidence about primate behavior that conveys information and show how natural information transfer is…

A fundamental question in developmental science is how brains with and without language compute numbers. Measuring young children's verbal reactions in Spain and Finland, we show that, although there is a general arithmetic ability for small numbers that is shared by monkeys and preverbal infants, the development of such initial knowledge in…

This paper describes a primatology project using computer assisted learning and interactive multimedia to help students at the University of Toronto (Canada) learn about non-human primates. The purpose of the interactive program is to present the "natural history" of the majority of the 200-plus species of non-human primates in constant…