(FLYTTAT) Mathias Osvath: Deep Time Cognition

Associate Professor Mathias Osvath, Department of Philosophy, Lund University: "Deep time cognition – from dinosaurs to modern birds and back"

Abstract
During the last decades it has been shown that apes and monkeys are cognitively similar to crow birds and parrots. These are remarkable findings, as birds and mammals shared a common ancestor 325 million years ago, hence they must have convergently evolved to reach similar levels of cognitive complexity. This opens new avenues for the comparative study of the principles of cognition and its architecture. In several projects we studied the evolution of cognition at the base of the bird lineage – including non-avian dinosaurs – through so-called extant phylogenetic bracketing. By comparing crocodilians with palaeognath birds, we bracket the extinct non-avian dinosaurs and capture a period of roughly 100 million years, where critical neurocognitive change occurred. I will present some of our research on inhibition, object cognition, learning, gaze following, play and auditory perception. Even if this research only represents a scratching of the surface, preliminary comparisons with mammals suggest that dinosaurs (including early birds) had more complex levels of cognition than mammals, and that mammals only seemed to catch up with the advent of primates. However, both dinosaurs and mammals seem to follow a somewhat similar pattern in their neurocognitive inventions – where the independent evolution of endothermy is key.