A “thinking animal” in conflict: studying wild elephant cognition in the shadow of anthropogenic change

While researchers interested in the evolution of human intelligence have traditionally focused on the psychology of other primates, a growing field aims to understand how similar cognitive abilities emerge in evolutionarily distant taxa. Here, we briefly review what we know, and why we do not know more, about the ‘mind’ of one such animal — the elephant — as well as its relevance to understanding convergent cognitive evolution across species. We also discuss the importance of studying animals such as elephants in the wild to better identify expressions of cognitive flexibility in human-impacted environments. Finally, as researchers invested in the study of an endangered species, we emphasize the need to contribute to the management of conservation-related problems from novel, cognitive perspectives.

• Publication year

  2022

• Venue

  Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences

• Publication date

  2022-08-01

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.cobeha.2022.101148
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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