Animal Behavior and Cognition (Nov 2022)

The Evolution of Primate Short-Term Memory

  • ManyPrimates,
  • Géraud Aguenounon,
  • Matthias Allritz,
  • Drew M. Altschul,
  • Sébastien Ballesta,
  • Alice Beaud,
  • Manuel Bohn,
  • Sally L. Bornbusch,
  • Angela Brandão,
  • James Brooks,
  • Thomas Bugnyar,
  • Judith M. Burkart,
  • Léa Bustamante,
  • Josep Call,
  • Charlotte Canteloup,
  • Chuangshi Cao,
  • Kai R. Caspar,
  • Diana da Silva,
  • Alexandra A. de Sousa,
  • Sarah E. DeTroy,
  • Shona Duguid,
  • Timothy M. Eppley,
  • Claudia Fichtel,
  • Julia Fischer,
  • Chi Gong,
  • James A. Grange,
  • Nicholas M. Grebe,
  • Daniel Hanus,
  • Daniel Haun,
  • Lou M. Haux,
  • Yseult Héjja-Brichard,
  • Annabella Helman,
  • Istvan Hernadi,
  • R. Adriana Hernandez-Aguilar,
  • Esther Herrmann,
  • Lydia M. Hopper,
  • Lauren H. Howard,
  • Lei Huang,
  • Sarah M. Huskisson,
  • Ivo Jacobs,
  • Zhiyong Jin,
  • Marine Joly,
  • Fumihiro Kano,
  • Stefanie Keupp,
  • Evelin Kiefer,
  • Balázs Knakker,
  • Katalin Kóczán,
  • Larissa Kraus,
  • Sze Chai Kwok,
  • Marie Lefrançois,
  • Laura Lewis,
  • Siyi Liu,
  • Miquel Llorente,
  • Elizabeth Lonsdorf,
  • Louise Loyant,
  • Katarzyna Majecka,
  • Luke Maurits,
  • Hélène Meunier,
  • Flávia Mobili,
  • Luca Morino,
  • Alba Motes-Rodrigo,
  • Vincent Nijman,
  • Caroline Nkov Ihomi,
  • Tomas Persson,
  • Dariusz Pietraszewski,
  • Juan Felipe Reátiga Parrish,
  • Anthony Roig,
  • Alejandro Sánchez-Amaro,
  • Yutaro Sato,
  • Gabriela-Alina Sauciuc,
  • Allie E. Schrock,
  • Manon K. Schweinfurth,
  • Amanda Seed,
  • Caroline L. Shearer,
  • Vedrana Šlipogor,
  • Yanjie Su,
  • Kirsten Sutherland,
  • Jingzhi Tan,
  • Derry Taylor,
  • Camille A. Troisi,
  • Christoph J. Völter,
  • Elizabeth Warren,
  • Julia Watzek,
  • Pauline Zablocki-Thomas

DOI
https://doi.org/10.26451/abc.09.04.06.2022
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 4
pp. 428 – 516

Abstract

Read online

Short-term memory is implicated in a range of cognitive abilities and is critical for understanding primate cognitive evolution. To investigate the effects of phylogeny, ecology and sociality on short-term memory, we tested the largest and most diverse primate sample to date (421 non-human primates across 41 species) in an experimental delayed-response task. Our results confirm previous findings that longer delays decrease memory performance across species and taxa. Our analyses demonstrate a considerable contribution of phylogeny over ecological and social factors on the distribution of short-term memory performance in primates; closely related species had more similar short-term memory abilities. Overall, individuals in the branch of Hominoidea performed better compared to Cercopithecoidea, who in turn performed above Platyrrhini and Strepsirrhini. Interdependencies between phylogeny and socioecology of a given species presented an obstacle to disentangling the effects of each of these factors on the evolution of short-term memory capacity. However, this study offers an important step forward in understanding the interspecies and individual variation in short-term memory ability by providing the first phylogenetic reconstruction of this trait’s evolutionary history. The dataset constitutes a unique resource for studying the evolution of primate cognition and the role of short-term memory in other cognitive abilities.

Keywords