Abstract: Domestic dogs are unusually skilled at reading human social and communicative behavior--even more so than our nearest primate relatives. For example, they use human social and communicative behavior (e.g. a pointing gesture) to find hidden food, and they know what the human can and cannot see in various situations. Recent comparisons between canid species suggest that these unusual social skills have a heritable component and initially evolved during domestication as a result of selection on systems mediating fear and aggression towards humans. Differences in chimpanzee and human temperament suggest that a similar process may have been an important catalyst leading to the evolution of unusual social skills in our own species. The study of convergent evolution provides an exciting opportunity to gain further insights into the evolutionary processes leading to human-like forms of cooperation and communication.

Abstract: The comparative study of infant development and animal cognition brings to cognitive science the promise of insights into the nature and origins of cognitive skills. In this article, I review a recent wave of comparative studies conducted with similar methodologies and similar theoretical frameworks on how two core components of human cognition--object permanence and gaze following--develop in different species. These comparative findings call for an integration of current competing accounts of developmental change. They further suggest that evolution has produced developmental devices capable at the same time of preserving core adaptive components, and opening themselves up to further adaptive change, not only in interaction with the external environment, but also in interaction with other co-developing cognitive systems.

Abstract: The 'social brain' hypothesis has had a major impact on the study of comparative cognition. However, despite a strong sense, gained from both experimental and observational work, that monkeys and apes differ from each other, we are still no closer to understanding exactly how they differ. We hypothesize that the dispersed social systems characteristic of ape societies explains why monkeys and apes should differ cognitively. The increased cognitive control and analogical reasoning ability needed to cope with life in dispersed societies also suggests a possible route for human cognitive evolution. This hypothesis is supported by behavioural and neurobiological data, but we need more of both if we are to fully understand how our primate cousins see the world.