EVApeCognition: An 18-year dataset of great ape cognition

Sánchez-Amaro, A., Ebel van Wijk, S. J., Molenaar, C., Abuova, A., Mujica-Manrique, L., Leisterer-Peoples, S. M., Beheim, B., Maurits, L., Albiach-Serrano, A., Allritz, M., Altınok, N., Amici, F., Auersperg, A. M. I., Aureli, F., Bandini, E., Barth, J., Benziad, L., Bläsing, B. E., Bohn, M., Bourjade, M. Sánchez-Amaro, A., Ebel van Wijk, S. J., Molenaar, C., Abuova, A., Mujica-Manrique, L., Leisterer-Peoples, S. M., Beheim, B., Maurits, L., Albiach-Serrano, A., Allritz, M., Altınok, N., Amici, F., Auersperg, A. M. I., Aureli, F., Bandini, E., Barth, J., Benziad, L., Bläsing, B. E., Bohn, M., Bourjade, M., Bräuer, J., Broihanne, M.-H., Brosnan, S. F., Bueno-Guerra, N., Bugnyar, T., Buttelmann, D., Buttelmann, F., Cacchione, T., Carpenter, M., Colmenares, F., Crockford, C., Cronin, K. A., de las Heras, Á., De Marco, A., DeTroy, S. E., Dufour, V., Duguid, S., Dunbar, R. I. M., Eckert, J., Engelmann, J. M., Fagot, J., Fischer, J., Forss, S. I. F., Funk, M., Gergely, G., Greenberg, J. R., Großmann, J., Grüneisen, S., Halina, M., Hanus, D., Heilbronner, S. R., Heintz, C., Hepach, R., Herrmann, E., Hirata, S., Hribar, A., Janzen, G., Kaminski, J., Kanngiesser, P., Kano, F., Kirchhofer, K. C., Knofe, H., Kopp, K. S., Krupenye, C., Laumer, I. B., Levinson, S. C., Liszkowski, U., Manrique, H. M., Martin-Ordas, G., McEwen, E. S., Moore, R. T., Munar, E., Nadal, M., Nawroth, C., Nolte, S., Pelé, M., Potì, P., Rakoczy, H., Riedel, J., Romain, A., Rossano, F., Russell, Y. I., Sabbatini, G., Schäfer, M., Scheumann, M., Schmelz, M., Schmid, B., Schmitt, V., Sebastián-Enesco, C., Seed, A. M., Suda-King, C., Tauzin, T., Tempelmann, S., Tennie, C., Truppa, V., Uher, J., Vaish, A., van Leeuwen, E. J. C., Visalberghi, E. M., Völter, C. J., Vonau, V., Wascher, C. A. F., Wittig, R. M., Wolf, W., Tomasello, M., Liebal, K., Call, J., & Haun, D. B. M. (2026). EVApeCognition: An 18-year dataset of great ape cognition. Scientific Data. Advance online publication. doi:10.1038/s41597-026-07191-6.
The study of great ape cognition offers insights into the evolutionary origins of human intelligence, but is hindered by small sample sizes and restricted access to data. To address this, we present the EVApeCognition Dataset, a publicly available resource comprising 262 experimental datasets from 150 scientific publications from the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Center (2004–2021) in Leipzig, Germany. Eighty-one apes participated in 150 studies, with a majority (N = 78) participating in more than one study. Publication of the dataset aims to make these unique datasets accessible for future meta-analyses and correlational analyses, helping us better understand how our great ape relatives think, learn, and behave.
Additional information
supplementary materials
Publication type
Journal article
Publication date
2026

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