Convergent Evolution of Cognition in Corvids, Apes and Other Animals

Abstract

Abstract Over the past 30 years, a cognitive renaissance has produced startling revelations about how species perceive their physical and social worlds. Once considered mere automata by Descartes, recent research supports claims that many animals possess advanced cognitive capacities (Shettleworth, 2010). Moreover, advanced cognition appears to have arisen across numerous species, many of which are distantly related, but which share a number of traits, such as large relative brain size, complex sociality and behavioral flexibility. Is the evolution of advanced cognition the result of a series of adaptive specializations driven by the shared selection pressures that species face in their environments? With our expanding awareness of cognitive processes across species, attributes such as causal reasoning, mental time travel or mental attribution, once thought unique to humans, invite careful reconsideration of their evolutionary origins.

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