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Individual Differences in Great Ape Cognition Across Time and Domains: Stability, Structure, and Predictability
Manuel Bohn1,2, Christoph J Völter2,3, Daniel Hanus2
1Institute of Psychology in Education, Leuphana University Lüneburg.
Psychological Science
|April 15, 2026
Summary
Individual cognitive abilities in great apes are stable and predictable, driven by unique traits. Social cognition skills did not correlate with each other or other cognitive tasks in this study.
Area of Science:
- Comparative psychology
- Primatology
- Cognitive evolution
Background:
- Understanding individual differences in cognition is key to studying cognitive evolution and development.
- Great apes exhibit diverse cognitive abilities, including social cognition, quantity reasoning, executive function, and inferential reasoning.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the stability, structure, and predictability of individual differences in cognitive abilities in great apes.
- To investigate the relationships between different cognitive domains in this species.
Main Methods:
- Administered six cognitive tasks to 48 great apes from four species over 1.5 years (10 sessions).
- Analyzed task performance, focusing on individual-specific characteristics versus transient or group variables.
- Correlated performance across nonsocial and social cognitive tasks.
Main Results:
- Individual cognitive performance was primarily predicted by stable, individual-specific characteristics.
- Substantial positive correlations were found between nonsocial cognitive tasks.
- Social cognition tasks showed no significant correlations with each other or with nonsocial tasks.
Conclusions:
- Cognitive abilities in great apes are characterized by stable individual differences, particularly in nonsocial domains.
- Social cognition appears to be a distinct cognitive domain, separate from nonsocial abilities.
- Future research should focus on mechanistic models to understand the evolution of great ape cognition based on process-level commonalities.
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