Susana Monsó

📚 La profesora de la UNED Susana Monsó ha sido reconocida internacionalmente por su investigación sobre la muerte en los animales

Muchas gracias, Edgar 🤗

Several people sitting on a stage in a beautiful hall. I’m pictured talking with my hands. A screen behind us shows the title and cover of the German edition of my book.

A picture of me on a stage holding my prize with the Austrian minister for science next to me holding a copy of my book.

The prize winners on a stage holding their prize and their books. A screen behind them shows the covers of the four winners of the Science Book of the Year awards.

A picture of me looking exhilarated in front of a window shop displaying my book.

Yesterday was a truly special day as I returned to my beloved Vienna to receive a prize for a book that I conceived and wrote in that same city. Moved by the presence of friends in the audience and so thankful to everyone who voted for me.

Animal cultures matter for conservation, but also to animals - Learning & Behavior A growing acceptance that many nonhuman animal communities have distinct cultures – group-variable patterns of behavior and information sustained over time by social learning – is beginning to reshape...

"Animal cultures matter first and foremost because they matter to the animals themselves."

If you enjoyed our recent episode on the value of animal cultures, you may be interested in this new paper by @simonfitzpatrick.bsky.social & @kristinandrews.bsky.social!
link.springer.com/article/10.3...

Matching sounds to shapes: Evidence of the bouba-kiki effect in naïve baby chicks Maria Loconsole1*, Silvia Benavides-Varela2,3, Lucia Regolin1 Humans across multiple languages spontaneously associate the nonwords “kiki” and “bouba” with spiky and round shapes, respectively, a phenomenon named the bouba-kiki effect. To explore the origin of this association, and whether it is unique to humans, we tested the bouba-kiki effect in baby domestic chickens (Gallus gallus). as a precocial species, chicks can be tested shortly after hatching, allowing us to control their pretest experiences. Similar to humans, both 3-day-old [experiment 1 (exp. 1)] and 1-day-old (exp. 2) chicks spontaneously choose a spiky shape when hearing the “kiki” sound and a round shape when hearing the “bouba” sound. results from naïve young animals suggest a predisposed mechanism for matching the dimensions of shape and sound, which may be widespread across species.

main fig from the paper showing the association between bouba/round and kiki/spiky in newborn chicks

the new paper on bouba/kiki in chicks is utterly compelling

canonical, elegant method from comparative cogsci & its partner in developmental science, ultra-simple design, ultra-clear effects, no need for fancy analyses, machine learning, or AI

it appeared in an appropriately badass venue (Science)

Congratulations!!

Publishing a book on animal cognition in Spanish is getting it reviewed in a magazine on paranormal phenomena.

And an author not

Unfortunately that does not surprise me in the least 😞

I don’t know who needs to hear this but philosophy of animal minds is an actual field, and if you have an “idea” about animal minds that you want to publish you need to engage with the literature. Same with animal ethics. Signed: a frustrated reviewer.

A picture of an arm with a colourful sweater and pink fingernails holding a pastel blue book with light brown skulls and Chinese lettering on the cover.

The jacket of the book is lifted to reveal a print of a cute opossum and the words “La zarigüeya de Schrödinger”.

I got a copy of the Chinese edition of my book and it is so cute!

Thank you so much!

My paper on 🌱🦧 ANIMAL MEDICINE 🐜🍄, written with Cristian Saborido (office mate and tip-top philosopher of biology and medicine), is finally out in Philosophy of Science.

We offer a cool new framework for understanding medicine in different species, including our own. And it's ✨ OPEN ACCESS ✨

Thank you ♥️

🎉 Great news!

⭐ Susana Monsó’s book Das Schweigen der Schimpansen (German edition of Playing Possum) has won the Wissenschaftsbuch des Jahres 2026 award.

Congratulations to @susanamonso.com on this well-deserved recognition! 👏📚

omg

Thank you!!

Thank you so much Michela!

Beautiful. Congratulations!

Apes Share Human Ability to Imagine YouTube video by Johns Hopkins University

Imagination in bonobos!

I am thrilled to share a new paper w/ Amalia Bastos, out now in @science.org

We provide the first experimental evidence that a nonhuman animal can follow along a pretend scenario & track imaginary objects. Work w/ Kanzi, the bonobo, at Ape Initiative

youtu.be/NUSHcQQz2Ko

🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

Thank you! And yes, but I’ve no idea whether it’s open to the public.

Totally unexpected but apparently my book Playing Possum has won the Austrian Science Book of the Year award for the category of natural sciences. ✨✨✨

Beyond thrilled and delighted at the excuse to return to my beloved Vienna for the ceremony!

Thanks so much Moni!!

Why does everyday psychotherapy language feel both empowering and troubling?

TLDR: Because two practices are at play: mental health-speak, which empowers, and therapy-speak, which distorts.

A summary of our paper (w/ @almagro.bsky.social) in the great Imperfect Cognitions blog. 🙌

🔔 We're launching our Bluesky account today! Can you help us spread the word by retweeting this post? 😀

#Theoria #diamondopenaccessjournal

Promotional poster for the XIV Workshop on Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Sciences. The poster features a dark green background with stylized yellow and red floral illustrations around the edges. Large yellow text announces the workshop title. The event will take place 18–19 June at UNED, Edificio de Humanidades, Paseo de la Senda del Rey 7, Madrid. The keynote speakers listed are Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda (KU Leuven), Enara García (SDU), and José Antonio Pérez-Escobar (UNED). The poster highlights a Call for Abstracts (CfA) with an extended deadline of 1st February. Contact information is provided at xivpbcs@gmail.com

Final days to submit an abstract to #PBCS2026! If you are an early-career scholar looking for a supportive environment to discuss your work & meet international peers, consider applying! Another plus this year: The workshop will be in Madrid! sites.google.com/view/xivpbcs... #HPbio #philsci #philsky

Filosofía en español: Hoy escribo sobre chatbots post-ruptura en El Salto.

Animal Consciousness (first paragraph of the article). First published Sat Dec 23, 1995; substantive revision Tue Jan 13, 2026. Is there something it’s like to be an octopus, a bee, a snail? For much of the twentieth century, research into animal cognition tended to avoid questions of consciousness, following the lead of human neuroscience, where such questions were also marginalized (see the entries on animal cognition, methods in comparative cognition). However, the growing profile of consciousness science since 2000 has brought the topic of consciousness back into the scientific mainstream (see the entry on the neuroscience of consciousness), and this has led to resurgent interest in studying conscious experience in other animals.

I've been working for ages on a comprehensive revamp of the Stanford Encyclopedia Entry on "Animal Consciousness", with new sections on non-Western perspectives, methodological challenges and evolutionary big pictures, and it's out today: plato.stanford.edu/entries/cons.... Hope you find it useful!

Blue Tits are famous for learning to peel foil lids off the milk bottles left by milkmen on UK doorstops. I wanted to know if Great Tits have been observed doing the same thing, possibly having learned from their cousins. In hindsight, I should not have googled Milk bottle Great Tits. Don't do this.