Welcome to the Atlas of Comparative Cognition

The ACC is a major collaborative project that is designed to illustrate what we know about animal minds, and also what we do not yet know. Here you can find, for the topics within animal cognition that have so far been compiled by our team, lists of the experiments conducted to date, along with graphic representations of which species, for any given ability, have already been studied. For example, if you click on the 'cognitive ability' tab, you will be brought to a list of cognitive abilities (loosely defined) that have so far been reviewed. If you select one of these (for example 'joint attention', reviewed by Kirsty Graham), you will see a both a list of the experiments conducted so far on this topic along with a representation on a map of species of which species have so far been studied for this ability.

The site is based on data collected by an international team of contributors, and anyone can join this team if they are willing to put time into carrying out a systematic review of literature on a relevant topic in animal congition. The principles according to which the currently available data on any topic is identified follows the notion of the 'systematic review'. This is a way to conduct what is traditionally called a literature review, but one that aims to ensure that the literature identified is not arbitrary or biased. The ACC team have created 'procedure' documents designed to show you how to conduct this kind of review, which are available at About > Documents on this site. If you would like to conduct a systematic review or a meta-analysis, please contact the editors with a topic and species you would like to work on.