Cognition in the wild: understanding animal thought in its natural context

Why study cognition in the wild? Comparative perspectives on cognition from nonhumans have long been an important avenue for answering questions about how the mind works, sometimes with animals standing in as models for different aspects of human thought, and sometimes with a focus on the diverse cognitive processes of different species. Yet, research in comparative cognition has to date overwhelmingly involved inquiry based in laboratories. While such captive contexts can allow for the control needed to tease apart the mechanisms underlying behavior, they are also limited in several crucial ways. In particular, understanding cognition requires examining how it works in the real world — which can be messy, complex, and confusing. While cognition may be challenging to study in natural contexts, such data are crucial to fully understand the breadth and depth of nonhuman thought and how it contributes to real-world behavior. Situating cognition in the wild — the context in which it evolved — is therefore necessary to understand the function of these traits.