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Do the More Flexible Individuals Rely More on Causal Cognition? Observation Versus Intervention in Causal Inference in Great-Tailed Grackles

Behavioral flexibility, the ability to change behavior when circumstances change based on learning from previous experience, is thought to play an important role in a species ability to successfully adapt to new environments and expand its geographic range.

Chimpanzee Vowel-Like Sounds and Voice Quality Suggest Formant Space Expansion Through the Hominoid Lineage

The origins of human speech are obscure; it is still unclear what aspects are unique to our species or shared with our evolutionary cousins, in part due to a lack of a common framework for comparison.

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Limited Scope for Group Coordination in Stylistic Variations of Kolam Art

In large, complex societies, assorting with others with similar social norms or behaviors can facilitate successful coordination and cooperation.

Estimating the Reproducibility of Social Learning Research Published Between 1955 and 2018

Reproducibility is integral to science, but difficult to achieve. Previous research has quantified low rates of data availability and results reproducibility across the biological and behavioural sciences.

Reproductive Consequences of Material Use in Avian Nest Construction

Birds’ nests represent a rich behavioural ‘fingerprint’, comprising several important decisions—not the least of which is the selection of appropriate material.

APOE4 Is Associated with Elevated Blood Lipids and Lower Levels of Innate Immune Biomarkers in a Tropical Amerindian Subsistence Population

In post-industrial settings, apolipoprotein E4 (APOE4) is associated with increased cardiovascular and neurological disease risk.

How Small-Scale Societies Achieve Large-Scale Cooperation

For most of our species’ history, humans have lived in relatively small subsistence communities, often called small-scale societies.

DieTryin: an R Package for Data Collection, Automated Data Entry, and Post-Processing of Network-Structured Economic Games, Social Networks, and Other Roster-Based Dyadic Data

Researchers studying social networks and inter-personal sentiments in bounded or small-scale communities face a trade-off between the use of roster-based and free-recall/name-generator-based survey tools.

Animal Culture Research Should Include Avian Nest Construction

Material culture—that is, group-shared and socially learned object-related behaviour(s)—is a widespread and diverse phenomenon in humans.

Explaining Cross-Cultural Variation in Mirror Self-Recognition: New Insights Into the Ontogeny of Objective Self-Awareness

Mirror self-recognition (MSR) is considered to be the benchmark of objective self-awareness—the ability to think about oneself. Cross-cultural research showed that there are systematic differences in toddlers’ MSR abilities between 18 and 24 months.

Coalitions and Conflict: a Longitudinal Analysis of Men’s Politics

To negotiate conflict and navigate status hierarchy, individuals in many species form coalitions.

Children's Fingernail Cortisol Among Bayaka Foragers of the Congo Basin: Associations with Fathers' Roles

Children and mothers’ cortisol production in response to family psychosocial conditions, including parenting demands, family resource availability and parental conflict, has been extensively studied in the United States and Europe.

Chest Beats as an Honest Signal of Body Size in Male Mountain Gorillas (Gorilla Beringei Beringei)

Acoustic signals that reliably indicate body size, which usually determines competitive ability, are of particular interest for understanding how animals assess rivals and choose mates.

A Refitting Experiment on Long Bone Identification

Refitting is an important analytical tool in archaeology that can yield valuable information on site formation processes and on the range of activities practiced at a site, including tool production, tool curation, and discard behavior, among others.

How Can Evolutionary and Biological Anthropologists Engage Broader Audiences?

With our diverse training, theoretical and empirical toolkits, and rich data, evolutionary and biological anthropologists (EBAs) have much to contribute to research and policy decisions about climate change and other pressing social issues.

Entropy Trade-Offs in Artistic Design: a Case Study of Tamil Kolam

From an evolutionary perspective, art presents many puzzles. Humans invest substantial effort in generating apparently useless displays that include artworks.

The Potential to Infer the Historical Pattern of Cultural Macroevolution

Phylogenetic analyses increasingly take centre-stage in our understanding of the processes shaping patterns of cultural diversity and cultural evolution over time.

Taking Charge and Stepping In: Individuals Who Punish Are Rewarded with Prestige and Dominance

A hallmark of human societies is the scale at which we cooperate with many others, even when they are not closely genetically related to us.