Primate brains in the wild: The sensory bases for social interactions

Each organism in the animal kingdom has evolved to detect and process a specific set of stimuli in its environment. Studies of an animal's socioecology can help us to identify these stimuli, as well as the natural behavioural responses that they evoke and control. Primates are no exception, but many of our specializations are in the social domain. How did the human brain come to be so exquisitely tuned to social interactions? Only a comparative approach will provide the answer. Behavioural studies are shedding light on the sensory bases for non-human primate social interactions, and data from these studies are paving the way for investigations into the neural bases of sociality.