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A farewell to EQ: A new brain size measure for comparative primate cognition

View ORCID ProfileCarel P. van Schaik, View ORCID ProfileZegni Triki, View ORCID ProfileRedouan Bshary, View ORCID ProfileSandra Andrea Heldstab
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.15.431238
Carel P. van Schaik
1Department of Anthropology & Anthropological Museum, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
2Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Science, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
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  • For correspondence: vschaik@aim.uzh.ch
Zegni Triki
3Behavioural Ecology Laboratory, Faculty of Science, University of Neuchâtel, Emile-Argand 11, 2000 Neuchâtel, Switzerland
4Institute of Zoology, Stockholm University, Svante, Arrheniusväg 18 B, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
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Redouan Bshary
3Behavioural Ecology Laboratory, Faculty of Science, University of Neuchâtel, Emile-Argand 11, 2000 Neuchâtel, Switzerland
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Sandra Andrea Heldstab
1Department of Anthropology & Anthropological Museum, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
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Abstract

Both absolute and relative brain size vary greatly among and within the major vertebrate lineages. Scientists have long debated how larger brains in primates and hominins translate into greater cognitive performance, and in particular how to control for the relationship between the non-cognitive functions of the brain and body size. One solution to this problem is to establish the slope of cognitive equivalence, that is the line connecting organisms with an identical bauplan but different body sizes. Here, we suggest that intraspecific slopes provide the best available estimate of this measure. This approach was abandoned because slopes were too low by an unknown margin due to estimation error. We control for the error problem by focusing on highly dimorphic primate species with large sample sizes and fitting a line through the mean values for adult females and males. We obtain the best estimate for the slope of ca 0.27, a value much lower than those constructed using all mammal species, and close to the value expected based on the genetic correlation between brain size and body size. We also find that the estimate of cognitive brain size based on cognitive equivalence fits empirical cognitive studies better than the encephalization quotient (EQ), which should therefore be avoided in future studies on primates, and presumably mammals and birds in general. The use of residuals from the line of cognitive equivalence may change conclusions concerning the cognitive abilities of extant and extinct primate species, including hominins.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted February 15, 2021.
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A farewell to EQ: A new brain size measure for comparative primate cognition
Carel P. van Schaik, Zegni Triki, Redouan Bshary, Sandra Andrea Heldstab
bioRxiv 2021.02.15.431238; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.15.431238
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A farewell to EQ: A new brain size measure for comparative primate cognition
Carel P. van Schaik, Zegni Triki, Redouan Bshary, Sandra Andrea Heldstab
bioRxiv 2021.02.15.431238; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.15.431238

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