Wild cognition: is something fishy with traditional evolutionary theories of cognition?

To explain interspecific differences in cognition, the fundamental aim of comparative psychology, the field has offered several hypotheses such as the famous Social Intelligence Hypothesis or Ecological Intelligence Hypothesis. However, these adaptive theories rely on premises that might be unfounded and experimental support for these hypotheses is often weakened by confounding factors such as mere phylogenetic distance between species or captive life conditions. I will present a series of experimental cognitive works conducted with wild cichlid fish while SCUBA-diving in Lake Tanganyika, one of the African Great Lakes. Particularly, I will focus on species of this adaptive radiation which build bowers and are highly amenable to field cognitive experiments. These species present differences in cognition (inhibitory control abilities and attentional strategies while making decisions), differences that can fit into traditional narratives but also open doors to broader thoughts on the evolution of cognition.