Biologists and anthropologists in Japan have played a crucial role in
the development of primatology as a scientific discipline. Publication
of Primate Origins of Human Cognition and Behavior under the editorship
of Tetsuro Matsuzawa reaffirms the pervasive and creative role played by
the intellectual descendants of Kinji Imanishi and Junichiro Itani in
the fields of behavioral ecology, psychology, and cognitive science.
Matsuzawa and his colleagues-humans and other primate partners- explore
a broad range of issues including the phylogeny of perception and
cognition; the origin of human speech; learning and memory; recognition
of self, others, and species; society and social interaction; and
culture. With data from field and laboratory studies of more than 90
primate species and of more than 50 years of long-term research, the
intellectual breadth represented in this volume makes it a major
contribution to comparative cognitive science and to current views on
the origin of the mind and behavior of humans.