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The evolution of primate short-term memory

Jacobs, Ivo LU orcid ; Persson, Tomas LU orcid ; Sauciuc, Gabriela-Alina LU and Zablocki-Thomas, Pauline (2021)
Abstract
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 ability, we tested 421 non-human primates across 41 species in a pre-registered, 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. However, interdependencies between phylogeny and socioecology of a given... (More)
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 ability, we tested 421 non-human primates across 41 species in a pre-registered, 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. However, interdependencies between phylogeny and socioecology of a given species present an obstacle to disentangling the effects of each of these factors on the evolution of short-term memory capacity. The dataset corresponding to the study is freely accessible and constitutes an important resource for studying the evolution of primate cognition. (Less)
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author
; ; and
author collaboration
organization
publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
keywords
cognitive evolution, phylogenetic analysis, primate cognition, short-term memory
pages
63 pages
publisher
PsyArXiv
DOI
10.31234/osf.io/5etnf
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
39ca3f14-eb58-4911-bb83-8e582a8a87df
date added to LUP
2022-11-28 15:05:07
date last changed
2023-03-11 02:28:41
@misc{39ca3f14-eb58-4911-bb83-8e582a8a87df,
  abstract     = {{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 ability, we tested 421 non-human primates across 41 species in a pre-registered, 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. However, interdependencies between phylogeny and socioecology of a given species present an obstacle to disentangling the effects of each of these factors on the evolution of short-term memory capacity. The dataset corresponding to the study is freely accessible and constitutes an important resource for studying the evolution of primate cognition.}},
  author       = {{Jacobs, Ivo and Persson, Tomas and Sauciuc, Gabriela-Alina and Zablocki-Thomas, Pauline}},
  keywords     = {{cognitive evolution; phylogenetic analysis; primate cognition; short-term memory}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Preprint}},
  publisher    = {{PsyArXiv}},
  title        = {{The evolution of primate short-term memory}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/5etnf}},
  doi          = {{10.31234/osf.io/5etnf}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}