On understanding the nature and evolution of social cognition: a need for the study of communication

Social pressure drives “conversational rules” in great apes

“…The ‘social brain hypothesis’ proposes that the complex social world of primates is especially cognitively demanding, and that this imposed an intense selection pressure for increasingly large brains (Dunbar, 1998). It thus predicts that a greater number of individuals and thus greater diversity of personalities and relationships requires greater signalling complexity for effective manipulation of the behaviours of others (Freeberg et al ., 2019). A key metric of social complexity is the number of differentiated relationships that individuals have (Bergman & Beehner, 2015).…”

Clark’s nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) modify caching behavior when observed.

“…Individuals’ paying attention to whether they are being observed by another individual has been thought to be especially important for highly social species (Emery, 2000). Indeed, sensitivity to sometimes subtle signals and cues of others is thought to be crucial to fitness in socially complex species (Freeberg et al, 2019; Sewall, 2015). Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the studies of such sensitivity have focused on socially complex species—those in which individuals tend to spend much of their time in relatively large groups in which they interact with many of the same individuals over long periods of time.…”

Measuring communicative complexity across modalities: a new framework in the context of the “social complexity hypothesis” and its application in true lemurs

“…Indeed, increased social cognition will enhance the ability of an individual to behave in cooperative or competitive ways with the members of his group (Freeberg et al 2019). The "Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis" originally addressed both competitive and cooperative aspects; however, Lucas and colleagues (2018) recently highlighted that different predictions may be derived from these two approaches.…”

“…Compiling mentions of the importance of sociality in the evolution of complex communicative systems, we can see that different predictions have been drawn. These predictions are essentially based on two key mechanisms at play in mediating social relationships: individual recognition and social affiliation (Freeberg et al 2019;Roberts and Roberts 2020).…”

“…Our definition of signalEtymologically, the term "signal" refers to a "visible sign", an "indication", something "distinguished from what is ordinary"(Harper 2001b). However, traditionally, the field of animal communication has made a distinction between signals and cues(Maynard-Smith and Harper 2003;Leonhardt et al 2016;Freeberg et al 2019). Signals are…”