Nicole Lahiff
Research Associate
Profile
Biography
- PhD in Psychology, University of York (2017-2021)
- MPsych, University of York (2013-2017)
Graduated with an MPsych from the University of York and stayed to do a PhD at the University of York in Psychology. Then conducted 4 years of post-doctoral work with the Comparative Communication and Cognition Group in the Evolutionary Anthropology department at the University of Zurich.
My research focuses on the development of communication and social cognition, taking a longitudinal, cross-cultural approach. I am also interested in the evolution of these traits and have explored this using a comparative approach with primate species, including chimpanzees, bonobos and Sulawesi crested macaques.
Research
Overview
“The Development of Normative Prosociality across Diverse Societies” with Dr Bailey House and Professor Katie Slocombe.
Publications
Full publications list
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Lahiff, N.J., et al. (2025) Conspecific alarm calls, but not food-associated calls, elicit affect-based and object-based mental representations in a bonobo (Pan paniscus). Royal Society Open Science, 12(4), 242173 |
Wilke, C., Lahiff, N. J., Sabbi, KH., Watts, DP., Townsend, SW., Slocombe, KE. (2022) Declarative referential gesturing in a wild chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(47), e2206486119
Lahiff, N. J., Wilke, C., et al. (2022) Referential gestures are not ubiquitous in wild chimpanzees: alternative functions for exaggerated loud scratch gestures. Animal Behaviour, 189, 23-45.
Lahiff, N. J., Slocombe, KE., Taglialatela, J., Dellwo, V., Townsend, SW. (2022) Degraded and computer-generated speech processing in a bonobo. Animal Cognition, 1-6.