Evidence map›Paper›PMID 28479979›Full record

ReviewInterface focus2017

The evolution of intelligence in mammalian carnivores.

Kay E Holekamp, Sarah Benson-Amram

Open access · bronzeAbstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Interface focus, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
13citing papers in PubMed
4.3field-weighted citation impact, top 6% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

13 citing papers in PubMed, 53 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Wild canids and felids differ in their reliance on reused travel routeways.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. The value of individual identification in studies of free-living hyenas and aardwolves.Mammalian biology = Zeitschrift fur Saugetierkunde · 2022
    Review
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. Review
  11. An evolutionary perspective on paranoia.Nature human behaviour · 2019
    Article
  12. Article
  13. Individual differences: Case studies of rodent and primate intelligence.Journal of experimental psychology. Animal learning and cognition · 2017
    Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

Kay E HolekampDepartment of Integrative Biology, Michigan State University, 288 Farm Lane, Room 203, East Lansing, MI 48824-1115, USA.ORCID 0000-0001-5471-1076
Sarah Benson-AmramDepartment of Zoology and Physiology, University of Wyoming, 1000 E. University Ave, Biological Science Building, Laramie, WY 82071, USA.
Michigan State University · USUniversity of Wyoming · US

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Although intelligence should theoretically evolve to help animals solve specific types of problems posed by the environment, it is unclear which environmental challenges favour enhanced cognition, or how general intelligence evolves along with domain-specific cognitive abilities. The social intelligence hypothesis posits that big brains and great intelligence have evolved to cope with the labile behaviour of group mates. We have exploited the remarkable convergence in social complexity between cercopithecine primates and spotted hyaenas to test predictions of the social intelligence hypothesis in regard to both cognition and brain size. Behavioural data indicate that there has been considerable convergence between primates and hyaenas with respect to their social cognitive abilities. Moreover, compared with other hyaena species, spotted hyaenas have larger brains and expanded frontal cortex, as predicted by the social intelligence hypothesis. However, broader comparative study suggests that domain-general intelligence in carnivores probably did not evolve in response to selection pressures imposed specifically in the social domain. The cognitive buffer hypothesis, which suggests that general intelligence evolves to help animals cope with novel or changing environments, appears to offer a more robust explanation for general intelligence in carnivores than any hypothesis invoking selection pressures imposed strictly by sociality or foraging demands.

Indexed as

cognitive buffer hypothesisgeneral intelligencehyaenassocial cognition

Identifiers

PMID28479979
PMCPMC5413890
OpenAlexW2606426958

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.