Primate foraging can be construed as a set of interconnected problems that include finding food, selecting efficient travel routes, anticipating the positions of moving prey, and manipulating, and occasionally, extracting food items using tools. The evidence reviewed in this paper strongly suggests that both monkeys and apes use three types of representation (i.e., static, dynamic, and relational) to solve various problems. Static representations involve recalling certain features of the environment, dynamic representations involve imagining changes in the trajectories of moving objects, (...) and relational representations involve encoding the properties of objects in relation to other objects. Contrary to previous claims, no clear differences were found between the representational skills of monkeys and apes. Current evidence also suggests that primates may be better at representing general compared to specific problem features. Finally, we have characterized the domains of space and objects as complementary and indicated future lines of research in these domains. (shrink)

Comparative analysis of the behavior of modern primates, in conjunction with an accurate phylogenetic tree of relatedness, has the power to chart the early history of human cognitive evolution. Adaptive cognitive changes along this path occurred, it is believed, in response to various forms of complexity; to some extent, theories that relate particular challenges to cognitive adaptations can also be tested against comparative data on primate ecology and behavior. This paper explains the procedures by which data are employed, and uses (...) the best currently available evidence to derive a proposal for some of the stages through which human cognition evolved, before the last common ancestor with a nonhuman, and the reasons that cognitive adaptations were favored in primate evolution. (shrink)