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Challenges and promises of big team comparative cognition

Nature Human Behaviour volume 9, pages 240–242 (2025)Cite this article

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Big team science has the potential to reshape comparative cognition research, but its implementation — especially in making fair comparisons between species, handling multisite variation and reaching researcher consensus — poses daunting challenges. Here, we propose solutions and discuss how big team science can transform the field.

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Acknowledgements

The authors of this work are listed alphabetically with the exception of N.A. (first and corresponding author) and L.P. (last author), who coordinated and managed the preparation of the manuscript in their capacity as co-leads of the ManyManys 1 BTS collaboration. The authors are deeply grateful to H. Killam for creating the original version of the image featured in the manuscript. The authors were supported by the following fellowships and grants: FRQSC Postdoctoral Fellowship (B3Z, no. 333109) (N.A.), British Academy PF20\100086 (D.A.), NSF BCS 2127375 (S.F.B.), Open Philanthropy (L.C.), Leverhulme Early-Career Research Fellowship (M.E.), National Science Foundation Award no. 2209046 (J.E.), ERC-2020-ADG, AVIAN MIND, LS5, GA no. 101021354 (O.G.), National Biodiversity Future Center—NBFC, “NextGenerationEU” (Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.4—Project code CN_00000033, CUP J83C22000860007) (V.M.), The Sense Innovation and Research Center, Lausanne and Sion (no. CFP2023_WLDC), USB Postdoctoral Fellowship (V.Š.), UDLA Grant 483.A.XIV.24 (J.Y.), NIH NICHD F32HD110174 (M.Z.) and K-INBRE P20 GM103418 (L.P.).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montréal, Québec, Canada

    Nicolás Alessandroni & Krista Byers-Heinlein

  2. School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Drew Altschul

  3. School of Psychology, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

    Drew Altschul

  4. Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Heidi A. Baumgartner

  5. Psychology Department, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

    Marina Bazhydai

  6. Neuroscience Institute, Departments of Psychology & Philosophy, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Sarah F. Brosnan

  7. National Center for Chimpanzee Care, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Bastrop, TX, USA

    Sarah F. Brosnan

  8. School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK

    Josep Call

  9. School of Biological & Behavioural Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    Lars Chittka

  10. School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Mahmoud Elsherif

  11. School of Psychology and Vision Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

    Mahmoud Elsherif

  12. Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Julia Espinosa

  13. Animal Health and Welfare Research Centre, University Centre Sparsholt, Winchester, UK

    Marianne S. Freeman

  14. Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Skopje, North Macedonia

    Biljana Gjoneska

  15. Fakultät für Psychologie, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    Onur Güntürkün

  16. Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Ludwig Huber & Raoul Schwing

  17. Department of Behavioural Neurobiology, Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence, Seewiesen, Germany

    Anastasia Krasheninnikova

  18. Department for Ecological and Biological Sciences, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy

    Valeria Mazza

  19. Animal Ecology Group, University of Potsdam, Postdam, Germany

    Valeria Mazza

  20. School of Life Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK

    Rachael Miller

  21. Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Rachael Miller

  22. Centre for Brain Research, School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    David Moreau

  23. Working Group Animal Behaviour & Welfare, Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology, Dummerstorf, Germany

    Christian Nawroth

  24. Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Ekaterina Pronizius

  25. Psychological Sciences Research Institute, UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Ekaterina Pronizius

  26. Department of Psychology, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus – Senftenberg, Cottbus, Germany

    Susana Ruiz-Fernández

  27. Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Vedrana Šlipogor

  28. The Sense Innovation and Research Center, Lausanne and Sion, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Vedrana Šlipogor

  29. Department of Zoology, University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czech Republic

    Vedrana Šlipogor

  30. Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Ingmar Visser

  31. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Jennifer Vonk

  32. Grupo de Investigación en Biodiversidad, Medio Ambiente y Salud (BIOMAS), Facultad de Ingenierías y Ciencas Aplicadas, Universidad de las Américas, Quito, Ecuador

    Justin Yeager

  33. Department of Cognitive Science, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Martin Zettersten

  34. Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Martin Zettersten

  35. Department of Psychology and Counseling, Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, KS, USA

    Laurent Prétôt

Authors
  1. Nicolás Alessandroni
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  2. Drew Altschul
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  3. Heidi A. Baumgartner
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  4. Marina Bazhydai
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  5. Sarah F. Brosnan
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  6. Krista Byers-Heinlein
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  7. Josep Call
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  8. Lars Chittka
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  9. Mahmoud Elsherif
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  10. Julia Espinosa
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  11. Marianne S. Freeman
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  12. Biljana Gjoneska
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  13. Onur Güntürkün
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  14. Ludwig Huber
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  15. Anastasia Krasheninnikova
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  16. Valeria Mazza
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  17. Rachael Miller
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  18. David Moreau
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  19. Christian Nawroth
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  20. Ekaterina Pronizius
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  21. Susana Ruiz-Fernández
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  22. Raoul Schwing
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  23. Vedrana Šlipogor
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  24. Ingmar Visser
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  25. Jennifer Vonk
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  26. Justin Yeager
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  27. Martin Zettersten
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  28. Laurent Prétôt
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nicolás Alessandroni.

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Alessandroni, N., Altschul, D., Baumgartner, H.A. et al. Challenges and promises of big team comparative cognition. Nat Hum Behav 9, 240–242 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-02081-6

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