Sonja Ebel
Guest Researcher
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology
Deutscher Platz 6
04103 Leipzig
Germany
phone: +49 (0) 341 3550 714
e-mail: sonja_ebel@[>>> Please remove the text! <<<]eva.mpg.de
Research Interests
I am interested in the role of experience in great ape and human tool use. Experience can have positive (i.e., facilitating) and negative effects on tool-use performance ("functional fixedness effect"). Related to this issue, it is still under debate whether great apes have enduring functional representations of tools, an intriguing research question. Finally, I am interested in differences in the structure of cognitive domains in different great ape species (bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and orang-utans).
Curriculum Vitae
| since 2020 | Postdoctoral Researcher Psychological Methods, Department of Psychology Philipps University of Marburg |
| 2020 | Postdoctoral Researcher Lifespan Psychology, Institute of Psychology I University of Lübeck (temporary position, maternity leave replacement) |
| 2019 - 2020 | Postdoctoral Researcher Project "Evolution of Brain Connectivity" Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology & Department of Primatology Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig |
| 2014 - 2019 | Ph.D. Psychology School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews (Scotland) and Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig |
| 2013 | Research Assistant Research Group “Comparative Cognitive Anthropology” Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig |
| 2013 | Student Assistant Research group “Evolutionary Psychology” Freie Universität Berlin |
| 2010 - 2013 | M.Sc. Neurobiology and Behaviour Freie Universität Berlin |
| 2011 - 2012 | Erasmus exchange program M.Sc. Behavioural, Neuro- and Cognitive Biology University of Vienna |
| 2007 - 2010 | B.A. Philosophy, Neurosciences, Cognition Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg |
Publications
Ebel, S. J., Völter, C., Sánchez Amaro, A., Helming, A. K., Herrmann, E., & Call, J. (submitted). Functional fixedness in great apes. |
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Ebel, S. J., Zeidler, H., Duguid, S., Eckert, J., Völter, C., Call, J., & Herrmann, E. (submitted). Food or tool - does social experience modulate object knowledge in children and chimpanzees? |
Ebel, S. J., Völter, C. J., & Call, J. (2021). Prior experience mediates the usage of food items as tools in great apes (Pan paniscus, Pan troglodytes, Gorilla gorilla, and Pongo abelii). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 135(1), 64-73. |
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Kopp, K. S., Ebel, S. J., Wittig, R. M., Haun, D. B. M., & Crockford, C. (2021). Small mirrors do the trick: A simple, but effective method to study mirror self-recognition in chimpanzees. Animal Behavior and Cognition, 8(3), 391-404. |
Open AccessEbel, S. J., Kopp, K. S., & Liebal, K. (2020). Object preferences in captive Sumatran orang-utans (Pongo abelii). Behavioural Processes, 170: 103993. |
Ebel, S. J. (2019). Tool use in great apes and human children: The impact of prior experience and visual feedback. PhD Thesis, University of St Andrews, St Andrews. |
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Ebel, S. J., Hanus, D., & Call, J. (2019). How prior experience and task presentation modulate innovation in 6-year-old-children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 180, 87-103. |
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Ebel, S. J., Schmelz, M., Herrmann, E., & Call, J. (2019). Innovative problem solving in great apes: The role of visual feedback in the floating peanut task. Animal Cognition, 22(5), 791-805. |
Ebel, S. J., & Call, J. (2018). The interplay of prior experience and motivation in great ape problem-solving (Gorilla gorilla, Pan paniscus, Pan troglodytes, and Pongo abelii). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 132(3), 294-305. |
