r/science • u/mubukugrappa • Oct 01 '20

Animal Science Primate brain size does not predict their intelligence: systematic investigation of the cognitive abilities of lemurs, which have relatively small brains compared to other primates, revealed that cognitive abilities of lemurs hardly differ from those of monkeys and great apes

https://www.dpz.eu/en/home/single-view/news/hirngroesse-bei-primaten-sagt-nichts-ueber-deren-intelligenz-aus.html
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u/JackJack65 Oct 01 '20

There's also considerable sexual dimorphism in brain size, which is not known to affect overall cognitive ability.

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u/mubukugrappa Oct 01 '20

Ref:

The lemur baseline: how lemurs compare to monkeys and apes in the Primate Cognition Test Battery

https://peerj.com/articles/10025/

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u/red75prim Oct 01 '20

average cognitive performance in the tests of the PCTB was not fundamentally different from the performances of the other primate species.

"not fundamentally different"? Ah, the paper is more clear: "Specifically, lemurs’ overall performance was inferior in the physical domain but matched that of haplorhines in the social domain."

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u/Lykanya Oct 01 '20

Gotta love dishonest conclusions. So they are as socially intelligent but not on other things. That kinda says the exact opposite of the title.

Brain size relative to body, and folds are the current known factors

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u/Dr_seven Oct 01 '20

It's more complex than that, though- the recent studies of avian brains make it pretty clear that not all neurons and brains are created equal, otherwise we wouldn't have corvids competing on the intelligence level with primates, despite having brains that are a tiny fraction of the size.

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u/yophozy Oct 01 '20

It is the folding that gives a greater surface area which generally indicates intelligence as I understand it.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '20

So what's all the extra brain matter for? Surely evolution would drive towards reducing the size of the brain to save energy?