Duke Economics

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Department of Evolutionary Anthropology
104 Biological Sciences Building
Box 90383
Durham, NC 27708-9976
(919) 684-4124  (Phone)
(919) 660-7348 (Fax)

    Alexandra G. Rosati

  • Alexandra G. Rosati

  • Graduate Assistant
  • Evolutionary Anthropology
  • 004A Biological Sciences Building
  • Phone: (919) 660-7294
  • Homepage
  • Curriculum Vitae

  • Research Description

    Primates in the wild face complex foraging decisions: choosing the most ‘valuable’ of potential resources to exploit, remembering the location and navigating between widely distributed options, and dealing with conspecifics that are attempting to do the same thing. My research focuses on how animals solve these problems. Specifically, I examine how ecology shapes behavioral strategies and psychological abilities in primates, including lemurs and our closest extant relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos. In addition, I examine how foraging skills are co-opted in modern humans that must make decisions about very different types of currencies (such as money), as well as whether humans have specialized skills in these domains that contribute to our unique cognitive phenotype.

  • Areas of Interest

    cognitive evolution
    decision-making
    spatial memory
    foraging
    lemurs
    human and nonhuman apes

  • Education

      • B.A.,
      • Psychology,
      • Harvard University,
      • 2005

  • Selected Publications

      • Rosati, A.G. & Hare, B.
      • 2012.
      • Decision-making across social contexts: competition increases preferences for risk in chimpanzees and bonobos.
      • Animal Behaviour
      • 84:
      • 869-879
      • [PDF] [Supplemental Materials]
      • .
      • Rosati, A.G. & Hare, B.
      • 2012.
      • Chimpanzees and bonobos exhibit divergent spatial memory development.
      • Development Science
      • 15:
      • 840-853
      • [PDF]
      • .
      • Rosati, A.G. & Hare, B.
      • 2011.
      • Chimpanzees and bonobos distinguish between risk and ambiguity.
      • Biology Letters
      • 7:
      • 15-18
      • [PDF] [Supplemental Materials]
      • .
      • Rosati, A.G. & Hare, B.
      • 2009.
      • Looking past the model species: diversity in gaze following-skills across primates.
      • Current Opinion in Neurobiology
      • 19:
      • 45-51
      • [PDF]
      • .
      • Rosati, A.G., Stevens, J.R., Hare, B. & Hauser, M.D.
      • 2007.
      • The evolutionary origins of human patience: Temporal preferences in chimpanzees, bonobos, and human adults.
      • Current Biology
      • 17:
      • 1663-1668
      • [PDF] [Supplemental Materials]
      • .
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