Four bonobos, seven gorillas, and six orangutans were presented with two small rectangular boards on a platform. One of the boards had a piece of food under it so that it acquired an inclined orientation whereas the other remained flat on the platform. Subjects preferentially selected the inclined board. In another experiment, subjects were…

Historically, population-level handedness has been considered a hallmark of human evolution. Whether nonhuman primates exhibit population-level handedness remains a topic of considerable debate. This paper summarizes published data on handedness in great apes. Comparative analysis indicated that chimpanzees and bonobos show population-level right…

The current paper examines if gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) possess an episodic memory system. Episodic memory, in humans, is a neurocognitive system that stores information about the personal past. Unique to episodic memory is its palinscopic or past-focused orientation; most memory systems serve to provide the organism with up to date…

We have previously proposed that cortical auditory-vocal networks of the monkey brain can be partly homologized with language networks that participate in the phonological loop. In this paper, we suggest that other linguistic phenomena like semantic and syntactic processing also rely on the activation of transient memory networks, which can be…

This research investigates the development of symbolic or representational play in two species of the genus "Pan", bonobos ("Pan paniscus") and chimpanzees ("Pan troglodytes"). The participants varied not only by species, but also as to whether they had become proficient in communicating with humans via a set of arbitrary visual symbols, called…

Considers natural and cultural environmental factors likely to have been responsible for reduction in size of hominid teeth and simplification of their morphology during the Pleistocene. Cites fossil evidence and postulates selective mechanisms. (EB)

Examined the relationship between changes in electroencephalograms and the development of the ability to perform cognitive tasks involving frontal lobe functioning in infants of 7 to 12 months of age. Infants who successfully found a hidden object showed changes in the power of brain electrical activity in the frontal lobe. (BC)

Contemporary evolution biology has recognized the role of development in evolution. Evolutionarily oriented psychologists have similarly recognized the role that behavioral plasticity, particularly early in development, may have had on the evolution of species, harking back to the ideas of Baldwin (the Baldwin effect). Epigenetic theories of…

The study investigates what an intermediate success rate means in bonobos, chimpanzees, and orangutans. Apes participated in liquid conservation experiments where they had to track the larger of two different quantities of juice after various kinds of transformations [Suda, C., & Call, J. (2004). Piagetian liquid conservation in the great apes…

Recent work with human infants and toddlers suggests a dissociation between performance on looking and reaching tasks. Specifically, infants appear to generate accurate representations of occluded objects and their actions when tested in expectancy violation looking tasks but often fail to use this information when reaching for occluded objects.…

Parker and Gibson's developmental model of evolution of language and intelligence in early hominids is described and discussed; data from a comparative study of object manipulation in two apes and a human infant are reported; and, human ontogenic developmental retardation in locomotion is discussed in terms of its implications for the differential…

The study describes the process of DNA-DNA hybridization and the history of its use by Sibley and Alquist in simple, straightforward, and interesting language that students easily understand to create their own phylogenetic tree of the hominoid superfamily. They calibrate the DNA clock and use it to estimate the divergence dates of the various…

Common marmosets ("Callithrix jacchus jacchus"), human children, and human adults learned to find a goal that was located in the center of a square array of four identical landmarks. The location of the landmark array and corresponding goal varied across trials, so the task could not be solved without using the landmark array. In Experiment 1, a…

Philosophers often consider what it is that makes individuals human. For biologists considering the same, the answer is often framed in the context of what are the key differences between humans and other animals. One vestige of human uniqueness still often cited by anthropologists is culture. However, this notion has been challenged in recent…

This article presents how many animals, like human beings, are also capable of painting, sketching, and displaying remarkable abilities. An example of these kind of animals are the "artists" Koko and Michael, gorillas who have been taught the Gorilla Sign Language or GSL as part of an ongoing project run by the Gorilla Foundation. This article…