Staff profile

I am interested in the evolution of human joint action, including various capacities such as joint commitment and communicative repair, as well as specific communicational and emotional skills. To address the evolutionary origins of these abilities, I employ a comparative approach, in which I assess similarities and differences in the process of social action coordination in humans and great apes (particularly chimpanzees and bonobos). My approach mainly implies observations in natural settings, but I also design experiments to implement specific manipulations to study eye gaze, emotion expressions and perception, as well as cooperative decision making. 

• Communication
• Evolution of social intelligence
• Joint action

Chapter in book

• Heesen, R., Sievers, C., Gruber, T., & Clay, Z. (2022). Primate communication: Affective, intentional, or both?. In B. Schwartz, & M. Beran (Eds.), Primate Cognitive Studies (411-438). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108955836.017

Journal Article

• mountain gorilla vocal sequences. Biology Letters, https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0380
• Heesen, R., Kim, Y., Kret, M. E., & Clay, Z. (2024). Perceptual integration of bodily and facial emotion cues in chimpanzees and humans. PNAS Nexus, 3(2), Article pgae012. https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae012
• Kim, Y., Vlaeyen, J., Heesen, R., Clay, Z., & Kret, M. (2022). The Association Between the Bared-Teeth Display and Social Dominance in Captive Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Affective Science, 3(4), 749-760. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-022-00138-1
• Heesen, R., Austry, D., Upton, Z., & Clay, Z. (2022). Flexible signalling strategies by victims mediate post-conflict interactions in bonobos. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 377(1860), https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0310
• Heesen, R., Fröhlich, M., Sievers, C., Woensdregt, M., & Dingemanse, M. (2022). Coordinating social action: A primer for the cross-species investigation of communicative repair. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 377(1859), https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0110
• Rossano, F., Terwilliger, J., Bangerter, A., Genty, E., Heesen, R., & Zuberbühler, Z. (2022). How 2- and 4-year-old children coordinate social interactions with peers. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 377(1859), https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0100
• Vlaeyen, J. M. R., Heesen, R., Kret, M. E., Clay, Z., Bionda, T., & Kim, Y. (2022). Bared-teeth displays in bonobos (Pan paniscus): An assessment of the power asymmetry hypothesis. American Journal of Primatology, 84(9), Article e23419. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.23419
• Bangerter, A., Genty, E., Heesen, R., Rossano, F., & Zuberbühler, Z. (2022). Every product needs a process: unpacking joint commitment as a process across species. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 377, https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0095
• Heesen, R., & Fröhlich, M. (2022). Revisiting the human ‘interaction engine’: comparative approaches to social action coordination. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 377(1859), https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0092
• Safryghin, A., Cross, C., Fallon, B., Heesen, R., Ferrer-i-Cancho, R., & Hobaiter, C. (2022). Variable expression of linguistic laws in ape gesture: a case study from chimpanzee sexual solicitation. Royal Society Open Science, 9(11), https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.220849
• Heesen, R., Zuberbühler, K., Bangerter, A., Iglesias, K., Rossano, F., Pajot, A., …Genty, E. (2021). Evidence of joint commitment in great apes’ natural joint actions. Royal Society Open Science, 8(12), Article 211121. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211121
• Heesen, R., Bangerter, A., Zuberbühler, K., Iglesias, K., Neumann, C., Pajot, A., …Genty, E. (2021). Assessing joint commitment as a process in great apes. iScience, 24(8), Article 102872. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.102872
• Genty, E., Heesen, R., Guéry, J., Rossano, F., Zuberbühler, K., & Bangerter, A. (2020). How apes get into and out of joint actions: Shared intentionality as an interactional achievement. Interaction Studies: Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems, 21(3), 353 - 386. https://doi.org/10.1075/is.18048.gen
• Heesen, R., Bangerter, A., Zuberbühler, K., Rossano, F., Iglesias, K., Guéry, J., & Genty, E. (2020). Bonobos engage in joint commitment. Science Advances, 6(51), https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abd1306
• Heesen, R., Hobaiter, C., Ferrer-i-Cancho, R., & Semple, S. (2019). Linguistic laws in chimpanzee gestural communication. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 286(1896), https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2900
• Heesen, R., Genty, E., Rossano, F., Zuberbühler, K., & Bangerter, A. (2017). Social play as joint action: A framework to study the evolution of shared intentionality as an interactional achievement. Learning & Behavior, 45(4), https://doi.org/10.3758/s13420-017-0287-9