Welcome to Our Lab!

 

I am an evolutionary and behavioral biologist just launching my own research group this year at the University of Konstanz (Germany) and the University of Zürich (Switzerland). My research explores what sets humans apart from other primates in communication, emotions, and interaction skills, while also examining shared mechanisms of collaboration across species. Observing natural behaviors like social grooming and play, we complement our findings with experimental approaches, using cutting-edge methods such as thermal imaging, eye-tracking, automated posture tracking, and non-invasive cortisol analyses.

 

​My goal is to identify emotional and communicative signals that facilitate joint action coordination: How do different primate species resolve communication breakdowns? What emotion expressions or behavioral processes support cooperation? Does the sharing of emotional states strengthen bonds and the sense of commitment? How do humans and chimpanzees develop advanced collaboration skills, and what are their evolutionary foundations?

 

To answer these questions, my group and I study joint action across cultures in adults and children (3-10 years) and compare findings with nonhuman primates, including bonobos, chimpanzees, and soon, Callitrichid monkeys. These comparisons help us trace the evolutionary, developmental, and cultural origins of cooperative and communicative skills and other interactional processes like synchrony and emotion contagion.

 

I am excited to promote “comparative joint action research” as a new research line in comparative psychology and behavioral biology. Early findings already provide promising insights that there is much to discover about how nonhuman primates navigate social interaction and commitment through communication. For instance, my collaborative work with colleagues from the University of Neuchâtel revealed that bonobos and chimpanzees, like human children, resume interrupted joint actions with peers and communicate depending on social relationships with their partners (Heesen et al., 2020, Science Advances; Heesen et al., 2021, Royal Society Open Science). We also recently showed that this capacity seems to develop with age, opening up exciting future avenues for developmental psychology research in apes (Heesen et al., in press). These findings suggest that “joint commitment” - formerly thought to be a unique component of human joint action - is present in other great apes, highlighting their communicative flexibility and emotional intelligence.

 

Interested in this topic and the work we do? Explore our website to learn more or reach out to me anytime, I’m happy to collaborate across disciplines and borders.