Since Darwin, comparative research has shown that most animals share basic timing capacities, such as the ability to process temporal regularities and produce rhythmic behaviors. What seems to be more exclusive, however, are the capacities to generate temporal predictions and to display anticipatory behavior at salient time points. These abilities are associated with subcortical structures like basal ganglia (BG) and cerebellum (CE), which are more developed in humans as compared to nonhuman animals. In the first research line, we investigated the basic capacities to extract temporal regularities from the acoustic environment and produce temporal predictions. We did so by adopting a comparative and translational approach, thus making use of a unique EEG dataset including 2 macaque monkeys, 20 healthy young, 11 healthy old participants and 22 stroke patients, 11 with focal lesions in the BG and 11 in the CE. In the second research line, we holistically explore the functional relevance of body-brain physiological interactions in human behavior. Thus, a series of planned studies investigate the functional mechanisms by which body signals (e.g., respiratory and cardiac rhythms) interact with and modulate neurocognitive functions from rest and sleep states to action and perception. This project supports the effort towards individual profiling: are individuals’ timing capacities (e.g., rhythm perception and production), and general behavior (e.g., individual walking and speaking rates) influenced / shaped by body-brain interactions?

Can nonhuman animals perceive the relation-between-relations? This intriguing question has been studied over the last 40 years; nonetheless, the extent to which nonhuman species can do so remains controversial. Here, I review empirical evidence suggesting that pigeons, parrots, crows, and baboons join humans in reliably acquiring and transferring relational matching-to-sample (RMTS). Many theorists consider that RMTS captures the essence of analogy, because basic to analogy is appreciating the ‘relation between relations.’ Factors affecting RMTS performance include: prior training experience, the entropy of the sample stimulus, and whether the items that serve as sample stimuli can also serve as choice stimuli.