The Evolution of Cognitive Control in Lemurs
研究通过实验测量四种狐猴的认知控制能力（如时间折扣、运动抑制、短期记忆等），发现生态特征比社会特征更能预测认知控制模式，为理解复杂认知的起源提供线索。
Cognitive control, or executive function, is a key feature of human cognition, allowing individuals to plan, acquire new information, or adopt new strategies when the circumstances change. Yet it is unclear which factors promote the evolution of more sophisticated executive-function abilities such as those possessed by humans. Examining cognitive control in nonhuman primates, our closest relatives, can help to identify these evolutionary processes. Here, we developed a novel battery to experimentally measure multiple aspects of cognitive control in primates: temporal discounting, motor inhibition, short-term memory, reversal learning, novelty responses, and persistence. We tested lemur species with targeted, independent variation in both ecological and social features (ruffed lemurs, Coquerel’s sifakas, ring-tailed lemurs, and mongoose lemurs; N = 39) and found that ecological rather than social characteristics best predicted patterns of cognitive control across these species. This highlights the importance of integrating cognitive data with species’ natural history to understand the origins of complex cognition.