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Brains, innovations and evolution in birds and primates.

Louis Lefebvre, +2 more
- 01 Jan 2004 - 
- Vol. 63, Iss: 4, pp 233-246
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TLDR
In birds, innovation rate is associated with the ability of species to deal with seasonal changes in the environment and to establish themselves in new regions, and it also appears to be related to the rate at which lineages diversify.
Abstract
Several comparative research programs have focused on the cognitive, life history and ecological traits that account for variation in brain size. We review one of these programs, a program that uses the reported frequency of behavioral innovation as an operational measure of cognition. In both birds and primates, innovation rate is positively correlated with the relative size of association areas in the brain, the hyperstriatum ventrale and neostriatum in birds and the isocortex and striatum in primates. Innovation rate is also positively correlated with the taxonomic distribution of tool use, as well as interspecific differences in learning. Some features of cognition have thus evolved in a remarkably similar way in primates and at least six phyletically-independent avian lineages. In birds, innovation rate is associated with the ability of species to deal with seasonal changes in the environment and to establish themselves in new regions, and it also appears to be related to the rate at which lineages diversify. Innovation rate provides a useful tool to quantify inter-taxon differences in cognition and to test classic hypotheses regarding the evolution of the brain.

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Evolution of the brain and intelligence

TL;DR: The outstanding intelligence of humans appears to result from a combination and enhancement of properties found in non-human primates, such as theory of mind, imitation and language, rather than from 'unique' properties.
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Evolution in the Social Brain

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The Human Brain in Numbers: A Linearly Scaled-up Primate Brain

TL;DR: These studies showed that the human brain is not exceptional in its cellular composition, as it was found to contain as many neuronal and non-neuronal cells as would be expected of a primate brain of its size, and argue in favor of a view of cognitive abilities that is centered on absolute numbers of neurons.
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Ecological implications of behavioural syndromes

TL;DR: How insights from the concept and study of behavioural syndromes provide fresh understanding of major issues in population ecology are explored, including limits to species' distribution and abundance and relative responses to human-induced rapid environmental change.
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Big brains, enhanced cognition, and response of birds to novel environments.

TL;DR: It is confirmed that avian species with larger brains, relative to their body mass, tend to be more successful at establishing themselves in novel environments and provided evidence that larger brains help birds respond to novel conditions by enhancing their innovation propensity rather than indirectly through noncognitive mechanisms.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Social learning theory

TL;DR: In this article, an exploración de the avances contemporaneos en la teoria del aprendizaje social, con especial enfasis en los importantes roles que cumplen los procesos cognitivos, indirectos, and autoregulatorios.
Journal ArticleDOI

Phylogenies and the Comparative Method

TL;DR: A method of correcting for the phylogeny has been proposed, which specifies a set of contrasts among species, contrasts that are statistically independent and can be used in regression or correlation studies.
Book

The comparative method in evolutionary biology

Paul H. Harvey, +1 more
TL;DR: The comparative method for studying adaptation why worry about phylogeny?
Book

Measuring Behaviour: An Introductory Guide

TL;DR: This concise review of methodology includes a comprehensive annotated bibliography and is intended, above all, as a practical guide-book.
Journal ArticleDOI

The social brain hypothesis

TL;DR: Conventional wisdom over the past 160 years in the cognitive and neurosciences has assumed that brains evolved to process factual information about the world, and attention has therefore been focused on such features as pattern recognition, color vision, and speech perception.
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