Human and Non-human Primate Behaviour: Sociality, Communication, and Evolution

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to introduce this Topic entitled “Human and Non-human Primate Behaviour: Sociality, Communication, and Evolution”.

Complex human behaviour did not emerge all of a sudden with Homo sapiens. Human behaviour has had a long evolutionary history, and its expression derives from biological mechanisms connected—in a multifaceted way—to different kinds of learning abilities. Not just typical but also elements of atypical behaviour development and expression may be rooted in the evolutionary history of humans and other primates. The perceived gap between us and other primates largely derives from the fact that all the bipedal hominins are extinct, except—of course—for our own species.

Spanning different primate groups—including lemurs, monkeys, apes and humans—this Special Issue focuses on the advancements in our knowledge of primate communication and interaction by using different sensory modalities and on how such communication and interaction relate to our understanding of how Homo sapiens navigate the world. This understanding adds to the scope of the Special Issue that is investigating the evolution of human behaviour by adopting a comparative approach.

We believe that the interdisciplinary and comparative approach, covering the biological, sociological and psychological domains, and tackling human and non-human primate behavioural processes can provide new perspectives to the existing literature regarding human ethology.

We hope this Topic can provide the basis and new ideas for further studies and that it can also challenge some of the present views on what is unique and what is not about human behaviour, fuelling a stimulating and constructive scientific debate.

Dr. Ivan Norscia
Dr. Giada Cordoni
Topic Editors