Lecturer in Psychology
Psychology Cottrell Building Room 3B144c, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences
I studied Biology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and an MSc in Primatology at the Universitat de Barcelona. In 2014, I obtained a "la Caixa" Fellowship to conduct my PhD in the Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology under the supervision of Prof. Michael Tomasello and Prof. Josep Call. After I graduated in 2017, I moved to the University of California San Diego with a DAAD Fellowship to conduct my first postdoc in Prof. Federico Rossano's lab in the Cognitive Science Department. In 2019, I visited the University of Zurich as a postdoc guest in the Anthropology Department, where I collaborated with Prof. Judith Burkart. In 2021 I joined the Comparative Cultural Psychology Department led by Prof. Daniel Haun at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Psychology, where I held my second postdoc. I joined the University of Stirling as a lecturer in Psychology at the beginning of 2024.
My work focuses on human and non-human primates resolving social dilemmas in which their individual interests do not align with the group interest. To do so, I have presented the participants with game theory settings resembling some of the most influential games, such as The Prisoner's Dilemma.
Besides my work on social dilemmas, I have recently become interested in how social factors such as bonding and dominance influence cognitive outcomes in great apes--and vice versa: how apes' experiences in comparative cognitive paradigms may influence their group dynamics.
Finally, I am generally interested in several other topics, including curiosity, risk-taking, and cognitive fallacies such as the decoy effect.
Article
Chimpanzees engage in competitive altruism in a triadic ultimatum game
Sánchez-Amaro A, Maurits L & Haun DBM (2024) Chimpanzees engage in competitive altruism in a triadic ultimatum game. Scientific Reports, 14, Art. No.: 3393. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-53973-6
Article
Comparative curiosity: How do great apes and children deal with uncertainty?
Sánchez-Amaro A & Rossano F (2023) Comparative curiosity: How do great apes and children deal with uncertainty?. Plos one, 18 (5), Art. No.: e0285946. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0285946
Book Chapter
Branching and Working Memory: A Cross-Linguistic Approach
Amici F, Sanchez-Amaro A & Cacchione T (2022) Branching and Working Memory: A Cross-Linguistic Approach. In: The Cambridge Handbook of Working Memory and Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 304-321. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108955638.018
Article
The evolution of primate short-term memory
Primates M, Aguenounon G, Allritz M, Altschul D, Ballesta S, Beaud A, Bohn M, Bornbusch S, Brandão A, Brooks J, Buhnyar T, Burkart J, Bustamente L, Call J & Canteloup C (2022) The evolution of primate short-term memory. Animal Behavior and Cognition, 9, pp. 428-516. https://doi.org/10.26451/abc.09.04.06.2022
Article
Sánchez-Amaro A, Tan J, Kaufhold SP, Fernández-Navarro S & Rossano F (2021) How environmental unpredictability and harshness affect chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) in risk-choice and temporal discounting tasks. Journal of comparative psychology, 135 (2), pp. 232-243.
Article
Chimpanzees and bonobos use social leverage in an ultimatum game
Sánchez-Amaro A & Rossano F (2021) Chimpanzees and bonobos use social leverage in an ultimatum game. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 288 (1962). https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.1937
Article
Gibbon strategies in a food competition task
Sánchez-Amaro A, Ball R & Rossano F (2021) Gibbon strategies in a food competition task. Scientific reports, 11, Art. No.: 9312.
Article
Marmoset monkeys overcome dyadic social dilemmas while avoiding mutual defection
Sánchez-Amaro A, Burkart JM & Rossano F (2021) Marmoset monkeys overcome dyadic social dilemmas while avoiding mutual defection. Animal Behaviour, 173, pp. 93-104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2020.12.020
Article
Do 7-year-old children understand social leverage?
Sánchez-Amaro A, Duguid S, Call J & Tomasello M (2020) Do 7-year-old children understand social leverage?. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 199, Art. No.: 104963. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104963
Article
Gibbons exploit information about what a competitor can see
Sánchez-Amaro A, Tan J, Kaufhold SP & Rossano F (2020) Gibbons exploit information about what a competitor can see. Animal cognition, 23, pp. 289-299. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-019-01333-7
Article
Altschul DM, Beran MJ, Bohn M, Caspar KR, Fichtel C, Försterling M, Grebe N, Hernandez-Aguilar RA, Kwok SC, Llorente M, Motes-Rodrigo A, Proctor D, Sanchez-Amora A, Simpson EA & Szabelska A (2019) Collaborative open science as a way to reproducibility and new insights in primate cognition research. Japanese Psychological Review, 62 (3), pp. 205-220. https://doi.org/10.24602/sjpr.62.3_205
Article
Establishing an infrastructure for collaboration in primate cognition research
Altschul DM, Beran MJ, Bohn M, Call J, DeTroy S, Duguid SJ, Egelkamp CL, Fichtel C, Fischer J, Flessert M, Hanus D, Haun DBM, Haux LM, Hernandez-Aguilar RA & Sanchez-Amaro A (2019) Establishing an infrastructure for collaboration in primate cognition research. PLoS One, 14 (10), Art. No.: e0223675. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0223675
Article
Disentangling great apes’ decoy-effect bias in a food choice task
Alejandro S, Altınok N, Heintz C & Call J (2019) Disentangling great apes’ decoy-effect bias in a food choice task. Animal Behavior and Cognition, 6 (3), pp. 213-222. https://doi.org/10.26451/abc.06.03.05.2019
Article
The word order of languages predicts native speakers’ working memory
Amici F, Sánchez-Amaro A, Sebastián-Enesco C, Cacchione T, Allritz M, Salazar-Bonet J & Rossano F (2019) The word order of languages predicts native speakers’ working memory. Scientific Reports, 9, Art. No.: 1124. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-37654-9
Article
Chimpanzees and children avoid mutual defection in a social dilemma
Sánchez-Amaro A, Duguid S, Call J & Tomasello M (2019) Chimpanzees and children avoid mutual defection in a social dilemma. Evolution and Human Behavior, 40 (1), pp. 46-54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.07.004
Article
Chimpanzees’ understanding of social leverage
Sánchez-Amaro A, Duguid S, Call J & Tomasello M (2018) Chimpanzees’ understanding of social leverage. PloS one, 13 (12), Art. No.: e0207868. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0207868
Sánchez Amaro A (2017) Coordination in conflict situations: A comparative investigation of the coordination strategies that children, chimpanzees and bonobos use to solve situations of conflict.
Article
Chimpanzees, bonobos and children successfully coordinate in conflict situations
Sánchez-Amaro A, Duguid S, Call J & Tomasello M (2017) Chimpanzees, bonobos and children successfully coordinate in conflict situations. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 284 (1856), Art. No.: 20170259. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.0259
Article
Sánchez-Amaro A, Peretό M & Call J (2016) Differences in between-reinforcer value modulate the selective-value effect in great apes (Pan troglodytes, P. Paniscus, Gorilla gorilla, Pongo abelii).. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 130 (1), pp. 1-12.
Article
Markets carefully interpreted: a reply to Kaburu and Newton-Fisher (2016)
Sánchez-Amaro A & Amici F (2016) Markets carefully interpreted: a reply to Kaburu and Newton-Fisher (2016). Animal Behavior, 119, pp. e7-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2016.06.022
Article
Chimpanzees coordinate in a snowdrift game
Sánchez-Amaro A, Duguid S, Call J & Tomasello M (2016) Chimpanzees coordinate in a snowdrift game. Animal Behaviour, 116, pp. 61-74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2016.03.030
Article
Calculated reciprocity? A comparative test with six primate species
Amici F, Aureli F, Mundry R, Amaro AS, Barroso AM, Ferretti J & Call J (2014) Calculated reciprocity? A comparative test with six primate species. Primates, 55, pp. 447--457. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-014-0424-4
