Fumihiro Kano is a comparative psychologist interested in the evolutionary origin of social intelligence, and particularly the study of animal social cognition in naturalistic situations. He studies this mainly through observation of gaze, as the direction of attention reveals a great deal of mental process in both human and nonhuman animals. He is working with a range of phylogenetically closely and more distantly related species; all species of great apes (including humans), and recently monkeys (Japanese monkeys) and birds (pigeons and crows).
As a junior group leader at Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior at Konstanz University, he presently studies the collective behavior and social cognition of birds (pigeons and crows) and primates (apes, monkeys, and humans) in collaboration with Max-Planck Institute of Animal Behavior.