Cognitive flexibility and sociality in Guinea baboons (Papio papio)

Cognitive flexibility is an executive function playing an important role in problem solving and the adaptation to contextual changes. While most studies investigated the contribution of cognitive flexibility to solve problems in the physical domain, the current study on baboons (Papio papio) investigated its contribution to sociality. The current study verified whether there is a relationship between cognitive flexibility at the individual level and the position of the individuals within their social group. Our study re-analysed for that purpose an already published dataset of 18 baboons Guinea baboons tested over two years in an adaptation of the Wisconsin Card Sorting task. The dominance rank and social network were inferred from their free access to the computer test system on which the cognitive task was presented. We found no clear-cut relationship between the hierarchical rank and cognitive flexibility (perseveration, learning latency and response time). By contrast, the most central baboons in their social network are those with the best performance in terms of cognitive flexibility. Overall, this study confirms our hypothesis that cognitive flexibility plays some roles in the regulation of the social relationship in baboons.