ArticleDevelopmental science2022
The origins of cognitive flexibility in chimpanzees.
Article in Developmental science, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Forms and Structures of Chimpanzee Algae Fishing.American journal of primatology · 2026Article
- EVApeCognition: An 18-Year Dataset of Great Ape Cognition.Scientific data · 2026Article
- Inhibitory control tests in non-human animals: validity, reliability, and perspectives.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Effects of methamphetamine-induced sleep disruption on intradimensional/extradimensional attentional set-shifting in adult rhesus monkeys.The Journal of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics · 2025Article
- Age-Related Dynamics of Fecal Microbiota in the Captive Chimpanzee (Polish journal of microbiology · 2025Article
- Early Emergence of Metacognition in Rhesus Monkeys.Developmental science · 2025Article
- Individual differences in sociocognitive traits in semi-free-ranging rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta).American journal of primatology · 2025Article
- The Role of Mindfulness Therapy in the Treatment of Chronic Pain.Current pain and headache reports · 2024Review
- Flexible information-seeking in chimpanzees.Cognition · 2024Article
- Serial visual reversal learning in captive black-handed spider monkeys, Ateles geoffroyi.Animal cognition · 2024Article
- Article
- What's in a mate? Social pairing decisions and spatial cognitive ability in food-caching mountain chickadees.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Observational approaches to chimpanzee behavior in an African sanctuary: Implications for research, welfare, and capacity-building.American journal of primatology · 2023Article
- Distinct developmental trajectories for risky and impulsive decision-making in chimpanzees.Journal of experimental psychology. General · 2023Article
- The shifting shelf task: a new, non-verbal measure for attentional set shifting.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- The origins of cognitive flexibility in chimpanzees.Developmental science · 2022Article
- Geographic differences in individual recognition linked with social but not nonsocial cognition.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Cognitive flexibility is a core component of executive function, a suite of cognitive capacities that enables individuals to update their behavior in dynamic environments. Human executive functions are proposed to be enhanced compared to other species, but this inference is based primarily on neuroanatomical studies. To address this, we examined the nature and origins of cognitive flexibility in chimpanzees, our closest living relatives. Across three studies, we examined different components of cognitive flexibility using reversal learning tasks where individuals first learned one contingency and then had to shift responses when contingencies flipped. In Study 1, we tested n = 82 chimpanzees ranging from juvenility to adulthood on a spatial reversal task, to characterize the development of basic shifting skills. In Study 2, we tested how n = 24 chimpanzees use spatial versus arbitrary perceptual information to shift, a proposed difference between human and nonhuman cognition. In Study 3, we tested n = 40 chimpanzees on a probabilistic reversal task. We found an extended developmental trajectory for basic shifting and shifting in response to probabilistic feedback-chimpanzees did not reach mature performance until late in ontogeny. Additionally, females were faster to shift than males were. We also found that chimpanzees were much more successful when using spatial versus perceptual cues, and highly perseverative when faced with probabilistic versus consistent outcomes. These results identify both core features of chimpanzee cognitive flexibility that are shared with humans, as well as constraints on chimpanzee cognitive flexibility that may represent evolutionary changes in human cognitive development.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.