Max Planck Institutes and Experts

The study of similarities and differences in behavior and physiology between humans and great apes allow for a better understanding of human evolution. Researchers of the Department of Primatology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig investigate with the help of behavioral observations and the measurement of physiological parameters in the urine of free living apes how competition and cooperation influence the excretion of a number of hormones.

In a successful global institution committed to the universal interest of humankind, national states and their demands remain important and have in recent years taken the shape of a North-South conflict. A research group at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology studies the decision-making processes of the UNESCO World Heritage institutions and the local consequences of World Heritage inscriptions in the celebrated historical cities of Kyoto, Istanbul, Melaka and Xiʼan.

The research project of the Beijing Tsinghua Tongheng Urban Planning & Design Institute THUPDI (Tsinghua University Beijing) and the Bibliotheca Hertziana (Max Planck Institute for Art History, Rome) is devoted to the Western Buildings in the Old Summer Palace Yuanmingyuan in Beijing. The project investigates the interaction between Western architectural forms and Chinese concepts of architecture. It examines how Chinese builders adapted indigenous and imported construction methods to realise the Western palaces and how this intercultural moment was received.

During face-to-face communication we integrate information from face and voice in order to recognize the identity of our conversational partner and understand the speech message. Novel research has shown that the brain integrates auditory and visual modalities much earlier than was previously thought.

Left-hemispheric stroke patients often suffer a profound loss of spontaneous speech – known as aphasia. Yet, many patients are still able to sing entire pieces of text fluently. Some clinicians have taken this as proof that singing may help speech production and speech recovery in aphasic patients. Recent research now offers a different answer: it may not be singing itself that aids speech production and speech recovery in aphasic patients, but rhythm and lyric type. These new insights may call previous assumptions on singing therapies into question.