'Language' and Intelligence in Monkeys and Apes: Comparative Developmental Perspectives

This collection of articles is completely and explicitly devoted to the new field of comparative developmental evolutionary psychology--that is, to studies of primate abilities based on frameworks drawn from developmental psychology and evolutionary biology. These frameworks include Piagetian and neo-Piagetian models as well as psycholinguistic ones. The articles in this collection--originating in Japan, Spain, Italy, France, Canada, and the United States--represent a variety of backgrounds in human and nonhuman primate research. The authors focus on such areas as the nature of culture, intelligence, language, and imitation; the differences among species in mental abilities and developmental patterns; and the evolution of life histories and of mental abilities and their neurological bases.

The editors conceived this book with the double purpose of introducing to a larger public a new approach to the study of animal abilities and of stimulating additional studies in the new research program described in this volume. The research program, which we call 'comparative developmental evolutionary psychology, ' is based on the application of frameworks from human developmental psychology and evolutionary biology to comparative studies of primate abilities.