Jacobson Sarah L, Puitiza Amanda, Snyder Rebecca J, Sheppard Ashley, Plotnik Joshua M
Department of Psychology, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10016, USA.
Department of Psychology, Hunter College, City University of New York, 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10065, USA.
Anim Cogn. 2022 Jun;25(3):657-669. doi: 10.1007/s10071-021-01576-3. Epub 2021 Nov 28.
Innovative problem solving is considered a hallmark measure of behavioral flexibility as it describes behavior by which an animal manipulates its environment in a novel way to reach a goal. Elephants are a highly social taxa that have demonstrated a remarkable capacity for adapting to changing environments. To understand how individual differences in behavior impact expressions of innovation, we used a novel extractive foraging device comprised of three compartments to evaluate innovation in 14 captive Asian elephants. In the first phase of testing, elephants had an opportunity to learn one solution, while the second phase gave them an opportunity to innovate to open two other compartments with different solutions. We measured the behavioral traits of neophilia, persistence, motivation, and exploratory diversity, and hypothesized that higher levels of each would be associated with more success in the second phase. Eight elephants innovated to solve three compartments, three solved two, and two solved only one. Consistent with studies in other species, we found that higher success was associated with greater persistence, but not with any other behavioral traits when analyzed per test session. Greater persistence and, unexpectedly, lower exploratory diversity, were associated with success when analyzed at the level of each individual door. Further work is needed to understand how innovation varies both within and between species, with particular attention to the potential impact of anthropogenic changes in wild environments.
创新问题解决被认为是行为灵活性的一个标志性指标，因为它描述了动物以新颖方式操纵其环境以实现目标的行为。大象是一个高度社会化的分类群，已表现出非凡的适应不断变化的环境的能力。为了了解行为上的个体差异如何影响创新表现，我们使用了一种由三个隔间组成的新型提取觅食装置，来评估14头圈养亚洲象的创新能力。在测试的第一阶段，大象有机会学习一种解决方案，而第二阶段则让它们有机会创新以打开另外两个有不同解决方案的隔间。我们测量了对新事物的喜爱、坚持性、动机和探索多样性等行为特征，并假设每个特征的较高水平都将与第二阶段的更多成功相关联。八头大象通过创新解决了三个隔间的问题，三头解决了两个，两头只解决了一个。与对其他物种的研究一致，我们发现更高的成功率与更大的坚持性相关，但在每次测试环节单独分析时，与任何其他行为特征均无关联。当在每个单独门的层面进行分析时，更大的坚持性以及出人意料的更低的探索多样性与成功相关。需要进一步开展工作，以了解创新在物种内部和物种之间是如何变化的，尤其要关注野生环境中人为变化的潜在影响。
