Associate Professor, Psychology and Anthropology
About
My group examines the evolutionary origins of the human mind. How do our primate relatives think about the world, are their psychological abilities similar to or different from our own, and why do some species differ in their cognitive abilities? Our research uses a comparative approach drawing on evolutionary theory, cognitive science, and developmental psychology to understand how complex cognitive traits emerge within species over ontogeny, and between species over evolutionary time. We are especially focused on capacities supporting decision-making, executive control, and social cognition. To do this work, we study a variety of semi-free-ranging ape, monkey, and lemur populations.
Selected publications:
De Petrillo, F. & Rosati, A.G. (2021). Variation in primate decision-making under uncertainty and the roots of human economic behaviour. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
Bettle, R. & Rosati, A.G. (2021). The evolutionary origins of natural pedagogy: Rhesus monkeys show sustained attention following nonsocial cues versus social communicative signals. Developmental Science.
Rosati, A.G., Hagberg, L., Enigk, D.K., Otali, E., Emery Thompson, M., Muller, M.N., Wrangham, R.W., & Machanda, Z.P. (2020) Social selectivity in aging wild chimpanzees. Science.
De Petrillo, F. & Rosati, A.G. (2020). Logical inferences from visual and auditory information in ruffed lemurs and sifakas. Animal Behaviour.
Machanda, Z.P. & Rosati, A.G. (2020). Shifting sociality during primate ageing. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
De Petrillo, F. & Rosati, A.G. (2019). Rhesus macaques use probabilities to predict future events. Evolution and Human Behavior.
Rosati, A.G. (2019). Heterochrony in chimpanzee and bonobo spatial memory development. American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
Bettle, R. & Rosati, A.G. (2019). Flexible gaze following in rhesus monkeys. Animal Cognition.
Rosati, A.G., DiNicola, L., & Buckholtz, J.W. (2018). Chimpanzee cooperation is fast, and independent from self-control. Psychological Science.
Rosati, A.G. (2017). Foraging cognition: reviving the ecological intelligence hypothesis. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
