Challenges and Promises of Big Team Comparative Cognition

Abstract

Big Team Science (BTS) offers immense potential for comparative cognition research, enabling larger and more diverse sample sizes, promoting open science practices, and fostering global collaboration. However, implementing BTS in comparative cognition also presents unique challenges, such as making comparisons “species fair,” dealing with multi-site variation, reaching consensus among researchers from diverse backgrounds, and incentivizing participation in BTS. Here, we explore these challenges and propose potential solutions. These include capitalizing on the collective expertise of a diverse team to facilitate species-fair experimental designs, implementing thorough documentation and data analysis techniques to account for cross-site variability, employing consensus-building strategies to foster collaboration and address theoretical discrepancies, and advocating for the value of BTS contributions in promoting cultural shifts within academia. We conclude that BTS is well-positioned to pave the way for groundbreaking discoveries in comparative cognition research—BTS holds the potential to transform the field by leveraging its collaborative power and addressing long-standing and highly complex questions with unprecedented scope.

Behavioral flexibility and novel environments: integrating current perspectives for future directions

“…Furthermore, this Special Column highlights scientific efforts from multidisciplinary international teams across the globe. We hope that this Special Column will stimulate further discussions on the topic of behavioral flexibility and novel environments, and potentially lead to new big-scale collaboration projects, in line with the Big Team Science efforts (e.g., Alessandroni et al 2024a , 2024b ). We also hope that this topical collection will help readers in designing new studies, whether conceptual or empirical in nature, allowing further insights into the role of behavior and cognition, and their potential for flexibility, in facing novel environments.…”