ABSTRACT A critical feature of language is that the form of words need not bear any
perceptual similarity to their function–these relationships can be 'arbitrary'. The capacity to …

Many animal species use tools, but human technical engagement is more complex. We
argue that there is coevolution between technical engagement (the manufacturing and use …

Executive functions (EF) are a core aspect of cognition. Research with adult humans has
produced evidence for unity and diversity in the structure of EF. Studies with preschoolers …

What is the likelihood that humans will ever determine if other animals engage in higher-
order thinking? In examining what has happened in the twenty years since the publication of …

It was long assumed that only humans can distinguish the living from the dead. Renewed
interest in this question over the last decade has led several authors to assert that non …

The aim of this article is to provide an evolutionarily grounded explanation of central aspects
of the structure of language. It begins with an account of the evolution of human causal …

Human communication relies heavily on pragmatic competence. Speech utterances are
often ambiguous requiring listeners to use interaction history, shared knowledge, presumed …

Temporal binding is the phenomenon in which events related as cause and effect are
perceived by humans to be closer in time than they actually are (Haggard et al. in Nat …

Animal minds are complex and diverse, making them difficult to study. This Element focuses
on a question that has received much attention in the field of comparative cognition:'Do …

The ability to infer unseen causes from evidence is argued to emerge early in development
and to be uniquely human. We explored whether preschoolers and capuchin monkeys could …