Bouchard Julie, Goodyer William, Lefebvre Louis
Department of Biology, McGill University, 1205, Avenue Docteur Penfield, Montréal, Québec, H3A 1B1, Canada.
Anim Cogn. 2007 Apr;10(2):259-66. doi: 10.1007/s10071-006-0064-1. Epub 2007 Jan 5.
When animals show both frequent innovation and fast social learning, new behaviours can spread more rapidly through populations and potentially increase rates of natural selection and speciation, as proposed by A.C. Wilson in his behavioural drive hypothesis. Comparative work on primates suggests that more innovative species also show more social learning. In this study, we look at intra-specific variation in innovation and social learning in captive wild-caught pigeons. Performances on an innovative problem-solving task and a social learning task are positively correlated in 42 individuals. The correlation remains significant when the effects of neophobia on the two abilities are removed. Neither sex nor dominance rank are associated with performance on the two tasks. Free-flying flocks of urban pigeons are able to solve the innovative food-finding problem used on captive birds, demonstrating it is within the range of their natural capacities. Taken together with the comparative literature, the positive correlation between innovation and social learning suggests that the two abilities are not traded-off.
正如A.C. 威尔逊在其行为驱动假说中所提出的，当动物既表现出频繁的创新又具备快速的社会学习能力时，新行为就能在种群中更迅速地传播，并有可能提高自然选择和物种形成的速率。对灵长类动物的比较研究表明，更具创新性的物种也表现出更多的社会学习行为。在本研究中，我们观察了圈养的野生捕获鸽子在创新和社会学习方面的种内变异。在一项创新问题解决任务和一项社会学习任务中的表现，在42只个体中呈正相关。当消除新恐惧症对这两种能力的影响时，这种相关性仍然显著。性别和优势等级都与这两项任务的表现无关。城市中自由飞行的鸽群能够解决用于圈养鸟类的创新觅食问题，这表明这在它们的自然能力范围内。结合比较文献来看，创新与社会学习之间的正相关表明这两种能力并非相互权衡。
