Why do humans communicate in such a complex and unique way, even compared to our closest relatives, the apes? While apes and humans share many cognitive abilities, human language stands out and researchers believe this difference may be rooted not just in intelligence, but in our unusually high levels of cooperation.

One key aspect of this cooperation is cooperative breeding where individuals help raise offspring that aren’t their own. This behaviour is rare among primates but common in humans, and it’s thought to have played an important role in the evolution of language.

To explore this idea, we compare wolves and dogs. Wolves, like humans, are intelligent, highly cooperative, and raise their young in social groups. Dogs, though closely related to wolves, have lost cooperative breeding behaviours during domestication. By studying how these two species communicate and collaborate, we can investigate how cooperation and communication evolved together.

Using machine learning and innovative tracking technology, we will observe wolves and dogs in naturalistic group settings, to study how they signal and respond during joint activities like hunting, pup care, or conflict resolution. We’ll also conduct experiments to test how they start and sustain cooperation, especially in situations where rewards are not evenly shared.

Our goal is to better understand the evolutionary roots of human language, and how intelligence and cooperation created a communication system unlike any other in the animal kingdom.

This project is an international collaboration funded by a Weave grant of the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Together, we aim to uncover how cooperation shapes communication—and what wolves and dogs can teach us about ourselves.

If you are interested in working with us, please get in touch!

Click here to see an article on NCCR website!

CIRI is a collaborative initiative developed by the NCCR Evolving Language and the University of Neuchâtel to foster cooperation between researchers and zoological institutions. It serves as a match-making platform connecting cognitive and behavioural scientists with zoos and wildlife parks interested in contributing to fundamental research. By facilitating access to diverse species and controlled environments, CIRI supports the development of ethically grounded, methodologically rigorous studies that advance comparative cognition and the evolutionary foundations of intelligence.

Contact: ciri@evolvinglanguage.ch

LINK TO CIRI PLATFORM – coming soon!!