Data from: Reflections of the social environment in chimpanzee memory: applying rational analysis beyond humans

In cognitive science, the rational analysis framework allows modelling of
how physical and social environments impose information-processing demands
onto cognitive systems. In humans, for example, past social contact among
individuals predicts their future contact with linear and power functions.
These features of the human environment constrain the optimal way to
remember information and probably shape how memory records are retained
and retrieved. We offer a primer on how biologists can apply rational
analysis to study animal behaviour. Using chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) as
a case study, we modelled 19 years of observational data on their social
contact patterns. Much like humans, the frequency of past encounters in
chimpanzees linearly predicted future encounters, and the recency of past
encounters predicted future encounters with a power function. Consistent
with the rational analyses carried out for human memory, these findings
suggest that chimpanzee memory performance should reflect those
environmental regularities. In re-analysing existing chimpanzee memory
data, we found that chimpanzee memory patterns mirrored their social
contact patterns. Our findings hint that human and chimpanzee memory
systems may have evolved to solve similar information-processing problems.
Overall, rational analysis offers novel theoretical and methodological
avenues for the comparative study of cognition.