Juliane Kaminski

Research interests

• Comparative social cognition
• Visual perspective taking in different mammalian species
• Deception
• Communication
• Cooperation
• The influence of domestication on cognition

Katja Liebal

My main interest concerns the multimodal communication of primates and the underlying socio-cognitive skills. I studied gestural communication in great apes and gibbons together with Simone Pika, University of Manchester, and Mike Tomasello and Josep Call at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. I collaborate with Bridget Waller at the University of Portsmouth to investigate the use and function of facial expressions in nonhuman primates. Currently I am a member of the Excellence Cluster Languages of Emotion at Free University of Berlin.  Projects include research on empathy in captive and semi-wild great apes, cross-cultural research to investigate the comprehension and expression of emotions and a study on the impact of emotions on researchers themselves when working in rough field conditions. My background is in Biology and most of my research is based on observations, but I also use experimental behavioural settings to study communicative strategies and emotion regulation in great apes.

Daniel Haun

Daniel is an experimental psychologist with an interest in cross-cultural variability of cognition, comparative and developmental social psychology and comparative great ape cognition. He studied in Germany, the United States and the UK. In 2007 he completed his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics investigating cross-cultural variability of spatial cognition under the supervision of Stephen Levinson. He then studied spatial and social cognition in non-human great apes and children as a post-doctoral researcher for Josep Call at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. In 2008, he accepted a position as lecturer in Developmental Psychology at the University of Portsmouth. He is currently directing the Research Group for Comparative Cognitive Anthropology, a joint project of the Max Planck Institutes for Psycholinguistics and Evolutionary Anthropology. Ongoing projects include research on cross-cultural variability of the cognition of space and time and the expression and comrehension of emotions. He is also involved in projects on analogy, the social role of imitation, sharing and prosociality and conformity to peer pressure.

Heinz Gretscher

In his diploma thesis, Heinz Gretscher worked on the social learning strategies of great apes and human children. Currently he is investigating non-vocal communication in primates. His main research interests include social cognition, perspective taking, gestural communication, social interaction and social learning.

Antje Girndt

Antje Girndt is the research assistant for the ROSI-group.  As well as planning and conducting studies with humans and apes, her responsibilities cover all administrative and organizational aspects, ranging from travel preparations to public relation matters.  Before joining the group, Antje worked as a research assistant in the Wolfgang-Köhler-Primate Research Center in Leipzig Zoo from 2006 to 2009.