Anne Russon

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at York University

Social learning is important in the acquisition of many primate behaviors, including food acquisition, object use, and sociality. Social learning opportunities are social situations in which social learning could occur and provide a means of studying influences on social learning in observational research. Species-specific characteristics and indiv...

Abstract Of the three subspecies of Critically Endangered Bornean orangutans, Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus has the smallest population size. One of its most important habitats is the tropical forest within and around Danau Sentarum National Park (DSNP). Research in the late 1990s estimated that ca. 1025 orangutans inhabited DSNP, while ca. 1717 oranguta...

The dry lowland and mangrove forests of Kutai National Park (KNP) in Indonesia provide invaluable ecosystem services to local human populations (>200,000 in number), serve as immense carbon sinks to recapture anthropogenic emissions, and safeguard habitats for thousands of wildlife species including the critically endangered Northeast Bornean orang...

Conservation strategies are rarely systematically evaluated, which reduces transparency, hinders the cost-effective deployment of resources, and hides what works best in different contexts. Using data on the iconic and critically endangered orangutan (Pongo spp.), we developed a novel spatiotemporal framework for evaluating conservation investments...

This handbook lays out the science behind how animals think, remember, create, calculate, and remember. It provides concise overviews on major areas of study such as animal communication and language, memory and recall, social cognition, social learning and teaching, numerical and quantitative abilities, as well as innovation and problem solving. T...

Using data on the iconic orangutan (Pongo spp.), we developed a novel spatiotemporal framework for evaluating conservation investments. We show that around USD 1 billion was invested between 1999 and 2019 into orangutan conservation by governments, non-governmental organizations, companies and communities. Broken down by allocation to different con...

Reprint of the article originally appearing in: Interaction Studies 19: 1-2 370-387 (2018)

Recommendations for strengthening orangutan conservation and climate change resilience in Kutai National Park, Indonesia. In Indonesia, Kutai National Park is home to what is likely to be East Kalimantan’s largest population of the Critically Endangered eastern subspecies of the Bornean Orangutan, Pongo pygmaeus morio. It also hosts an astounding...

This is the Indonesian language version of "Reforesting for the climate of tomorrow: Recommendations for strengthening orangutan conservation and climate change resilience in Kutai National Park, Indonesia" See https://www.iucn.org/news/species/201902/iucn-study-identifies-tree-species-climate-resilient-reforestation

We present a new road map for research on “How the Brain Got Language” that adopts an EvoDevoSocio perspective and highlights comparative neuroprimatology – the comparative study of brain, behavior and communication in extant monkeys and great apes – as providing a key grounding for hypotheses on the last common ancestor of humans and monkeys (LCA-...

This paper assesses great apes’ abilities for pantomime and action imitation, two communicative abilities proposed as key contributors to language evolution. Modern great apes, the only surviving nonhuman hominids, are important living models of the communicative platform upon which language evolved. This assessment is based on 62 great ape pantomi...

Unsustainable exploitation of natural resources is increasingly affecting the highly biodiverse tropics [1, 2]. Although rapid developments in remote sensing technology have permitted more precise estimates of land-cover change over large spatial scales [3, 4, 5], our knowledge about the effects of these changes on wildlife is much more sparse [6,...

For many threatened species the rate and drivers of population decline are difficult to assess accurately: species' surveys are typically restricted to small geographic areas, are conducted over short time periods, and employ a wide range of survey protocols. We addressed methodological challenges for assessing change in the abundance of an endange...

Orangutan rehabilitation and reintroduction projects have operated continuously since the early 1970s at several sites in Borneo and Sumatra. These projects currently care for over 1000 displaced, orphaned orangutans. Their reintroduction success rates are commonly considered unsatisfactory, however, so improving success is a high priority. Virtual...

Orangutan rehabilitation and reintroduction projects have operated continuously since the early 1970s at several sites in Borneo and Sumatra. These projects currently care for over 1000 displaced, orphaned orangutans. Their reintroduction success rates are commonly considered unsatisfactory, however, so improving success is a high priority. Virtual...

This chapter assesses the nature and role of creativity in orangutans’ tool use for arboreal travel and positioning. Tools have been a major focus of research because of their implications for cognition and innovation. Orangutans have contributed relatively little to this topic because, until recently, they showed little tool use in the wild. Their...

This study aimed to develop a long-term picture of orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus morio) behavioral adjustments to damaged masting forest around Mentoko, Kutai National Park, Indonesia. Mentoko is regenerating from two severe burnings and is one of few areas where orangutans were well-studied before and early after damage. We studied orangutans' feeding...

Primate tourism is a growing phenomenon, with increasing pressure coming from several directions: the private sector, governments, and conservation agencies. At the same time, some primate sites are working to exclude or severely restrict tourism because of problems that have developed as a result. Indeed, tourism has proven costly to primates due...

Primate tourism is a growing phenomenon, with increasing pressure coming from several directions: the private sector, governments, and conservation agencies. At the same time, some primate sites are working to exclude or severely restrict tourism because of problems that have developed as a result. Indeed, tourism has proven costly to primates due...

Primate tourism is a growing phenomenon, with increasing pressure coming from several directions: the private sector, governments, and conservation agencies. At the same time, some primate sites are working to exclude or severely restrict tourism because of problems that have developed as a result. Indeed, tourism has proven costly to primates due...

This paper presents new evidence of fish eating in rehabilitant orangutans living on two Bornean islands and explores its contributions to understanding nonhuman primates' aquatic fauna eating and the origins of ancestral hominin fish eating. We assessed the prevalence of orangutans' fish eating, their techniques for obtaining fish, and possible co...

Orangutan tourism has operated continuously since the 1970s, on both islands that orangutans inhabit (Borneo and Sumatra) and in both countries that govern them (Indonesia and Malaysia). As such it offers a rich example of primate tourism and an important one for conservation, especially from the long-term perspective (Butler, 1980; Catlin et al.,...

This book aims to assess the conservation effects of nature tourism. In particular, our focus is on tourism to visit nonhuman primates and their habitats. Although humans are also primates, for convenience, we refer to nonhuman primates as “primates” and nature tourism to visit them as “primate tourism.” Using nature tourism as a conservation tool...

Our aim in this book was to encourage balanced, empirically based assessments of primate tourism’s strengths and weaknesses as a primate conservation tool. Such assessments are increasingly called for, since nature tourism has not proven to be as low impact or as strong a conservation tool as previously hoped (Higham, 2007a; Knight & Cole, 1995). I...

Primate tourism is a growing phenomenon, with increasing pressure coming from several directions: the private sector, governments, and conservation agencies. At the same time, some primate sites are working to exclude or severely restrict tourism because of problems that have developed as a result. Indeed, tourism has proven costly to primates due...

How did the human species evolve the capacity not just to communicate complex ideas to one another but to hold such conversations from across the globe, using remote devices constructed from substances that do not exist in the natural world, the raw materials for which may have been hauled up from the bowels of the earth? How did we come to be so i...

The Arashiyama group of Japanese macaques holds a distinguished place in primatology as one of the longest continuously studied non-human primate populations in the world. The resulting long-term data provide a unique resource for researchers, allowing them to move beyond cross-sectional studies to tackle larger issues involving individual, matrili...

This chapter considers innovation from a cognitive perspective in ex-captive orang-utans readapting to forest life. The chapter describes innovations identified in the course of studying ex-captives' foraging behaviour to suggest how innovation occurs in foraging. It also describes opportunistically identified innovations in nonforaging domains to...

This study investigated the reproductive parameters of free-ranging rehabilitant female orangutans. We aimed to assess the factors that influence these parameters and provide information that could assist with the management of orangutan reintroduction programs. We analyzed the birth records of free-ranging female rehabilitants at Bukit Lawang, Buk...

This volume provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date compendium of theory and research in the field of human intelligence. Each of the 42 chapters is written by world-renowned experts in their respective fields, and collectively, they cover the full range of topics of contemporary interest in the study of intelligence. The handbook is divided...

We recently demonstrated, by mining observational data, that forest-living orangutans can communicate using gestures that qualify as pantomime.1 Pantomimes, like other iconic gestures, physically resemble their referents.2,3 More elaborately, pantomimes involve enacting their referents.4 Holding thumb and finger together at the lips and blowing bet...

A study of orangutans' daily energy expenditure confirmed exceptionally slow metabolism. It suggests they evolved a lifestyle designed to minimize energy use. If so, shifting to a higher energy-use strategy may help explain how humans evolved.

We present an exploratory study of forest-living orangutan pantomiming, i.e. gesturing in which they act out their meaning, focusing on its occurrence, communicative functions, and complexities. Studies show that captive great apes may elaborate messages if communication fails, and isolated reports suggest that great apes occasionally pantomime. We...

We report an observational field study that aimed to identify innovative processes in rehabilitant orangutans' (Pongo pygmaeus) water innovations on Kaja Island, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. We tested for the basic model of innovating (make small changes to old behavior), 4 contributors (apply old behavior to new ends, accidents, independent work...

This chapter explores variation in orangutan diets across their range, based on food lists. The authors of the chapter consolidated orangutan food lists from all available long-term field sites (N = 15). They represent both islands, multiple habitat types, varied degrees of degradation, and wild and rehabilitant populations. The chapter assesses th...

This chapter examines spontaneous innovation in orangutans using prevalence-based methods for identifying potential innovations in free-ranging populations and comparisons between rehabilitant and wild orangutans. Aims were to update the list of innovations, validate potential wild innovations, and estimate the innovative processes involved. Findin...

Our concern is with Ramsey et al.'s method for identifying innovation. We show that either it yields false positives or the authors offer insufficient guidance for its application. To avoid these results, the authors need to modify the key or offer better guidelines for delineating input. Either choice requires addressing the processes that generat...

We report an empirical study on leaf-carrying, a newly discovered nest-building technique that involves collecting nest materials before reaching the nest site. We assessed whether leaf-carrying by rehabilitant orangutans on Kaja Island, Central Kalimantan, owes to cultural influences. Findings derive from ca 600 h observational data on nesting ski...

Research on primate cognition has spurred interest in developmental influences on skill acquisition, especially complex foraging skills in great apes and specifically as they relate to species' life his-tory strategies. Survival skills are often mastered to functional levels near the onset of juvenility, for instance, this is when immatures are wea...

Research on the evolution of higher intelligence rarely combines data from fields as diverse as paleontology and psychology. In this volume we seek to do just that, synthesizing the approaches of hominoid cognition, psychology, language studies, ecology, evolution, paleoecology and systematics toward an understanding of great ape intelligence. Lead...

Research on the evolution of higher intelligence rarely combines data from fields as diverse as paleontology and psychology. In this volume we seek to do just that, synthesizing the approaches of hominoid cognition, psychology, language studies, ecology, evolution, paleoecology and systematics toward an understanding of great ape intelligence. Lead...

Research on the evolution of higher intelligence rarely combines data from fields as diverse as paleontology and psychology. In this volume we seek to do just that, synthesizing the approaches of hominoid cognition, psychology, language studies, ecology, evolution, paleoecology and systematics toward an understanding of great ape intelligence. Lead...

As an order, the group primates is markedly diverse for its size of some 300 species. The group includes adult male gorillas that weigh up to 5–6,000 times that of the smallest primates, the dwarf and mouse lemurs of Madagascar. There is also much diversity in locomotion and in diet, encompassing small carnivorous species such as tarsiers, and much...

Socially maintained behavioural traditions in non-human species hold great interest for biologists, anthropologists and psychologists. This book treats traditions in non-human species as biological phenomena that are amenable to the comparative methods of inquiry used in contemporary biology. Chapters in the first section define behavioural traditi...

There are good arguments for examining great ape communicative achievements for what they contribute to our understanding of great ape cognition and its evolution (Russon & Begun, in press a). Our concern is whether Shanker & King's (S&K's) thesis advances communication studies from a broader cognitive and evolutionary perspective.

Ex-captive orangutans that have returned to free forest life in Bornean forests offer exceptional opportunities to assess the cognitive challenges facing feral great apes. They also provide opportunities to track readaptation, which requires building expertise to survive in tropical rain forests and to integrate into orangutan communities. I outlin...

The following 5 papers were initially presented at the XVIIth Congress of the International Primatological Society in Antananarivo, Madagascar, 1998. The theme of the Congress—primate conservation—was especially timely for the great apes, which are rapidly approaching extinction at an accelerating pace because of destructive human activities. Based...

It is well known that children's activities are full of pretending and imagination, but it is less appreciated that animals can also show similar activities. Originally published in 2002, this book focuses on comparing and contrasting children's and animals' pretenses and imaginative activities. In the text, overviews of research present conflictin...

It is well known that children's activities are full of pretending and imagination, but it is less appreciated that animals can also show similar activities. Originally published in 2002, this book focuses on comparing and contrasting children's and animals' pretenses and imaginative activities. In the text, overviews of research present conflictin...

We report estimates of orangutan distribution and population size in and around the Danau Sentarum Wildlife Reserve (DSWR) in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, one of the few areas in Borneo that may still support a large population. We generated estimates in line with each of three proposed definitions for the reserve — its current boundaries, a moderat...

Research on the mental abilities of chimpanzees and bonobos has been widely celebrated and used in reconstructions of human evolution. In contrast, less attention has been paid to the abilities of gorillas and orangutans. This 1999 volume aims to help complete the picture of hominoid cognition by bringing together the work on gorillas and orangutan...

To explain social learning without invoking the cognitively complex concept of imitation, many learning mechanisms have been proposed. Borrowing an idea used routinely in cognitive psychology, we argue that most of these alternatives can be subsumed under a single process, priming, in which input increases the activation of stored internal represen...

Orangutans share many intellectual qualities with African great apes and humans, likely because of their recent common ancestry. They may also show unique intellectual adaptations because of their long evolutionary divergence from the African lineage. This paper assesses orangutan intelligence in light of this evolutionary history. Evidence derives...

Imitation research has been hindered by (1) overly molecular analyses of behaviour that ignore hierarchical structure, and (2) attempts to disqualify observational evidence. Program-level imitation is one of a range of cognitive skills for scheduling efficient novel behaviour, in particular, enabling an individual to purloin the organization o...

How can the intelligence of monkeys and apes, and the huge brain expansion which marked human evolution be explained? In 1988, Machiavellian Intelligence was the first book to assemble the early evidence suggesting a new answer: that the evolution of intellect was primarily driven by selection for manipulative, social expertise within groups where...

The Thinking Ape (see record 1996-97920-000 ) offers a fresh twist to the evolutionary history of human intelligence. Its topic is not the standard march of changes within the human lineage, but the ancestral primate intelligences that prefigured them. Reconstructing this history entails navigating a forest of modern scholarship spanning evolutiona...

This chapter presents the comparative analyses of two facets of orangutan true imitation, match and rehearsal, and their implications for great apes' uses of true imitation. The author proceeds by discussing the process and properties of spontaneous true imitation, the methodology developed for identifying spontaneous true imitation, analyses of th...

We discuss selectivity in great ape imitation, on the basis of an observational study of spontaneous imitation in free-ranging rehabilitant orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus). Research on great ape imitation has neglected selectivity, although comparative evidence suggests it may be important. We observed orangutans in central Indonesian Borneo and assess...

Imitation and tool use are expressions of intelligence that have, at one time or another, played central roles in evolutionary reconstructions of human intelligence. It is fairly well established that both occur in great apes, but questions remain over the relations between the two. This relation is critical because imitation could offer a powerful...

While computers have become increasingly important in the workplace, there is growing concern that women tend to be underrepresented in computer-related fields. The present study was concerned with teaching computer skills to female novices. In particular, we were interested in designing an instructional manual that would facilitate learning comput...

We made an observational study of spontaneous imitation in orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus). Previous studies may have underestimated great apes' imitative capacities by studying subjects under inhibiting conditions. We used subjects living in enriched environments, namely, rehabilitation. We collected a sample of spontaneous imitations and analyzed the...

We made an observational study of spontaneous imitation in orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus). Previous studies may have underestimated great apes' imitative capacities by studying subjects under inhibiting conditions. We used subjects living in enriched environments, namely, rehabilitation. We collected a sample of spontaneous imitations and analyzed the...

We made an observational study of spontaneous imitation in orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus). Previous studies may have underestimated great apes' imitative capacities by studying subjects under inhibiting conditions- We used subjects living in enriched environments, namely, rehabilitation. We collected a sample of spontaneous imitations and analyzed the...

The present study explored whether model choice in infant peer imitation is related to peer social dominance. Twelve 11–16-month old infants in a stable infant daycare group were videotaped systematically over a two-week period, providing six 20-minute focal individual samples of free social activity each. Dominance-related peer encounters and peer...

This is the first collection of articles completely and explicitly devoted to the new field of 'comparative developmental evolutionary psychology' - that is, to studies of primate abilities based on frameworks drawn from developmental psychology and evolutionary biology. These frameworks include Piagetian and neo-Piagetian models as well as psychol...

The extent and nature of direct caregiver intervention in peer social encounters among 12 infants were studied in a day care setting. Interventions were common, with almost half of them solicited by the infants; they tended to concentrate on problematic exchanges and to ignore positive ones; and they appeared to be aimed at fairness and the shaping...

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 1975. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 60-64). Microfiche of typescript.

Thèse (Ph. D.)--Université de Montréal, 1985. "Thèse présentée à la faculté des études supérieures en vue de l'obtention du grade de philosophiae doctor (Ph. D.)." Microfilm du manuscrit.

The report presents rational function approximations for Ko(x) and K1(x) for precisions ranging from three to twenty-two significant figures. The coefficients were generated on the CDC-6600 computer using the second algorithm of Remes

The report presents rational function approximations for Ko(x) and K1(x) for precisions ranging from three to twenty-two significant figures. The coefficients were generated on the CDC-6600 computer using the second algorithm of Remes