The nature of play in animals has been long debated, but progress is being made in
characterizing play and its variants, documenting its distribution across vertebrate and …

Spontaneous mimicry appears fundamental to emotional perception and contagion,
especially when it involves facial emotional expressions. Here we cover recent evidence on …

Play is generally considered an immature affair. However, adult play is present in several
mammal species living in complex social systems. Here, I hypothesize that adult social play …

Empathy is a complex, multi‐dimensional capacity that facilitates the sharing and
understanding of others' emotions. As our closest living relatives, bonobos (Pan paniscus) …

Rough‐and‐tumble play (RT) is a widespread phenomenon in mammals. Since it involves
competition, whereby one animal attempts to gain advantage over another, RT runs the risk …

Humans and great apes are highly social species, and encounter conspecifics throughout
their daily lives. During social interactions, they exchange information about their emotional …

A satisfactory account of human cognitive evolution will explain not only the psychological
mechanisms that make our species unique, but also how, when, and why these traits …

Play is one of the most difficult behaviors to quantify and for this reason, its study has had a
very rocky history. Social play is ephemeral, difficult to distinguish from the other so-called …

Studies of rats and some primates show that rough-and-tumble play among juveniles
improves social competence, cognition, and emotional regulation later in life. Most critically …

Why animals play has been a perennial question, but most of the thinking about this has
been framed in terms of its fitness benefits. A review of our present knowledge about the …