Emma Suvi McEwen

Excited to share that the second paper of my PhD is now published!

Kea but not cockatoos are susceptible to a bait-and-switch magic trick. And check out that thermal imaging! ❤️‍🔥

royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

New #openaccess paper out now looking at social presence effects during cognitive testing with #chimpanzees, with @aurelfrick.bsky.social and Amanda Seed! This is an important finding for zoo-based projects where visitors can watch and learn about our research. Read more here 👇

🎊Fully funded PhD position on cooperative sustainability🌳

Are you curious about
🧒 developmental,
🌍 cross-cultural
🦧 species comparative
research on cooperative sustainability?

All info here or dm me with questions!
career2.successfactors.eu/sfcareer/job...
Please share! 🙏

Huge thanks to keeper and research team @edinburghzoo.bsky.social for their support on this project! (4/4)

We discuss our results in the context of chimpanzee communication during social tasks and the parameters that do and do not constitute coordination from the subjects' perspective (3/4)

Chimpanzees reliably produced communication behaviours in the event of a breakdown in coordination and differed qualitatively in their operation of our see-saw apparatus depending on whether they learned it in a social or non-social setting. (2/4)

Do chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) mentally represent collaboration?: Action-learning and communication in a partnered task Non-human primates engage in complex collective behaviours, but existing research does not paint a clear picture of what individuals cognitively represent when they act together. This study investigat...

New paper alert 👇 We present a new two-action sequential coordination task designed to investigate co-representation non-human primates. In collaboration with @drelizabethwarren.bsky.social and Josep Call and out now, fully #openaccess in PLoS One! (1/4)
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

The Social & Cognitive Origins Group at Johns Hopkins University studies how humans and other animals think.

The Homewood campus of Johns Hopkins University in full spring bloom.

🚨RT!

The Social & Cognitive Origins group at @jhuartssciences.bsky.social (social-cognitive-origins.com), directed by Dr. Christopher Krupenye, is recruiting a full-time research assistant or lab manager to begin Summer 2025. The position has a one-year minimum, w/ the possibility of extension. 1/

Very happy to announce that our latest paper from our virtual environment work with chimpanzees, looking at efficient turning behaviour, is out now, fully #openaccess! More details in this thread from @realprimatthias.bsky.social about this study led by Sarah Koopman 👇

Do you like to dip your fries in ketchup before eating it? Our cockatoos do too! In a new study in Current Biology, we showed our cockatoos innovated a new way to flavour their food: they dunk noodles in blueberry soy yoghurt. Read about it and watch our video abstract: www.cell.com/current-biol...

The 1st Round of Microgrants 2025 is NOW OPEN! Applications close on February 24th. More info on requirements at https://linktr.ee/animalbehaviourcollective

We’re excited to open the first round of microgrants for the year! More info on requirements at
🔽
linktr.ee/animalbehavi...

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You can now apply for our 3 year postdoc looking at the role of culture and group size in social coordination and collaboration in the UK, Uganda and Republic of Korea!

Any questions please don’t hesitate to drop me a dm or email (sophie.milward@port.ac.uk)

mss.port.ac.uk/ce0732li_web...

DISI folks, we've made a starter pack of alums and past faculty so it's easier to find everyone here. Enjoy!

And do tell us if you'd like to be added!

go.bsky.app/AyYDTHa

🤝 This work was of course a group effort, and I’d like to thank all of my co-authors for their help along the way: @realprimatthias.bsky.social, Josep Call, Sarah Koopman, Emilie Rapport Munro, Cristóbal Bottero Cantuarias, Charlie Menzel, Francine Dolins, Karline Janmaat, and Ken Schweller

🐒 Since starting this work, our training protocol has been used with more great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas) across several zoos, as well as the Capuchin monkeys in Edinburgh Zoo (watch this space to see how they’ve been getting on with @amiscov.bsky.social and Amanda Seed)

🐶 We hope that others can use our training protocol to implement virtual environment research with more individuals and across more species, and we encourage using and adapting our flexible yet structured method

🏞️ We've already seen that virtual environments can be used to study spatial cognition in great apes (www.science.org/doi/full/10....), and we think that much more can be done with this technology

🎮 There's still a lot we don't know about how these virtual worlds are represented by non-human primates, but training the basic gameplay mechanisms is the first step towards investigating this and other cognitive phenomena!

🦧 We developed this method while working with some experienced chimpanzees, orang-utans with no prior experience with touchscreens, and chimpanzees in a group setting, each presenting their own training challenges!

🍎 Co-led by @realprimatthias.bsky.social, we present our touchscreen training method using the freely available APExplorer software for #chimpanzees and #orangutans to learn to navigate virtual environments and ‘collect’ virtual fruit, in Zoo Leipzig/MPI-EVA WKPRC and @edinburghzoo.bsky.social/BRU

A screenshot from the virtual environment foraging game. The scene shows green grass with a grey stone wall in the background, two trees, a rock, and six pieces of virtual fruit (apples, grapes, and bananas)

🌳 I’m excited to announce that we have published our paper outlining our protocol for training primates to forage in virtual environments! Out now #openaccess

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Dusky langurs - an example of primate natal colouration

🐵📢 I am recruiting a postdoctoral researcher to work for 6-months on our NSF-BBSRC project investigating the form and function of primate natal coats. Why are some🐒 babies🍊?!

www.swansea.ac.uk/jobs-at-swan...

Please pass on to potential applicants and get in touch if considering applying.

🚨 Exciting news! The ManyPrimates3 project is now open for data collection! In MP3, we will assess the ability of primates to make inferences by exclusion. Join us to explore primate cognition and promote large scale collaboration!

🐧 Extra special thanks to @rzss keepers who collaborated with me on this project! (5/5)

🧠 Humans and chimpanzees may share common cognitive mechanisms or predispositions that support social/joint interactions. (4/5)

☕In humans, this sort of action accommodation is an important part of how we interact smoothly; like passing someone a cup of coffee to their free hand! (3/5)

Across a series of experiments in Leipzig Zoo and
@rzss Edinburgh Zoo, in our #OpenAccess article out now in
@CognitionJourn, #chimpanzees passed a tool to an experimenter in a way that accommodated the experimenter’s action constraints (2/5)

Very pleased to announce that the first study from my PhD thesis is out now 🥳 with thanks to @ConstableMerryn
and all my other wonderful co-authors!
Chimpanzees exhibit a behavioural signature of human social coordination:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Emma and Andreea standing next to a digital poster presenting work entitled 'Capuchin Monkeys (Sapajus apella) in Virtual Environments'

Leoma playing the virtual environment game on a large touchscreen. The game consists of a grassy, walled arena with a tree, a fence, and a grape. Leoma is tapping on the grape to move towards it.

Great fun presenting and demo-ing some of our capuchin monkey virtual environment work with @AndreeaMiscov (and @AmandaMSeed who was there in spirit) at BCCCD24 😁🐵💻🌳👾 #BCCCD @CogDevCeu

🙋🏻‍♀️ yks mulle jos vielä on!