@article {308909,
	title = {The evolution of self-control.},
	journal = {Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A},
	volume = {111},
	year = {2014},
	month = {2014 May 20},
	pages = {E2140-8},
	abstract = {<p>Cognition presents evolutionary research with one of its greatest challenges. Cognitive evolution has been explained at the proximate level by shifts in absolute and relative brain volume and at the ultimate level by differences in social and dietary complexity. However, no study has integrated the experimental and phylogenetic approach at the scale required to rigorously test these explanations. Instead, previous research has largely relied on various measures of brain size as proxies for cognitive abilities. We experimentally evaluated these major evolutionary explanations by quantitatively comparing the cognitive performance of 567 individuals representing 36 species on two problem-solving tasks measuring self-control. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that absolute brain volume best predicted performance across species and accounted for considerably more variance than brain volume controlling for body mass. This result corroborates recent advances in evolutionary neurobiology and illustrates the cognitive consequences of cortical reorganization through increases in brain volume. Within primates, dietary breadth but not social group size was a strong predictor of species differences in self-control. Our results implicate robust evolutionary relationships between dietary breadth, absolute brain volume, and self-control. These findings provide a significant first step toward quantifying the primate cognitive phenome and explaining the process of cognitive evolution.</p>},
	keywords = {Animals, Biological Evolution, Brain, Cognition, Diet, Humans, Learning, Likelihood Functions, Models, Statistical, Organ Size, Phylogeny, Primates, Problem Solving, Selection, Genetic, Social Behavior, Species Specificity},
	issn = {1091-6490},
	doi = {10.1073/pnas.1323533111},
	url = {http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24753565},
	author = {MacLean, Evan L and Hare, Brian and Nunn, Charles L and Addessi, Elsa and Amici, Federica and Anderson, Rindy C and Aureli, Filippo and Baker, Joseph M and Bania, Amanda E and Barnard, Allison M and Boogert, Neeltje J and Brannon, Elizabeth M and Bray, Emily E and Bray, Joel and Brent, Lauren J N and Burkart, Judith M and Call, Josep and Cantlon, Jessica F and Cheke, Lucy G and Clayton, Nicola S and Delgado, Mikel M and DiVincenti, Louis J and Fujita, Kazuo and Herrmann, Esther and Hiramatsu, Chihiro and Jacobs, Lucia F and Jordan, Kerry E and Laude, Jennifer R and Leimgruber, Kristin L and Messer, Emily J E and Moura, Antonio C de A and Ostoji{\'c}, Ljerka and Picard, Alejandra and Platt, Michael L and Plotnik, Joshua M and Range, Friederike and Reader, Simon M and Reddy, Rachna B and Sandel, Aaron A and Santos, Laurie R and Schumann, Katrin and Seed, Amanda M and Sewall, Kendra B and Shaw, Rachael C and Slocombe, Katie E and Su, Yanjie and Takimoto, Ayaka and Tan, Jingzhi and Tao, Ruoting and van Schaik, Carel P and Vir{\'a}nyi, Zs{\'o}fia and Visalberghi, Elisabetta and Wade, Jordan C and Watanabe, Arii and Widness, Jane and Young, Julie K and Zentall, Thomas R and Zhao, Yini}
}
