Data from: The evolution of cognitive control in lemurs

Cognitive control, or executive function, is a key feature of human
cognition, allowing individuals to plan, acquire new information, or adopt
new strategies when the circumstances change. Yet it is unclear which
factors promote the evolution of more sophisticated executive function
abilities like those possessed by humans. Examining cognitive control in
non-human primates, our closest relatives, can help to identify these
evolutionary processes. Here we developed a novel battery to
experimentally measure multiple aspects of cognitive control in primates:
temporal discounting, motor inhibition, short-term memory, reversal
learning, novelty responses, and persistence. We tested lemur species with
targeted, independent variation in both ecological and social features
(ruffed lemurs, Coquerel’s sifakas, ring-tailed lemurs and mongoose
lemurs, N = 39 lemurs), and found that ecological rather than social
characteristics best predicted patterns of cognitive control across these
species. This highlights the importance of integrating cognitive data with
species’ natural history to understand the origins of complex cognition.