Synopses & Reviews
In 1953 a young female Japanese monkey called Imo began washing sweet potatoes in water prior to eating, presumably to remove dirt and sand grains. Soon other monkeys had copied her behavior, and potato-washing gradually spread throughout the entire troop. When, three years after her first invention, Imo devised a second novel foraging behavior, that of separating wheat from sand by throwing mixed handfuls into water and scooping out the floating grains, she was almost instantly heralded around the world as a "monkey genius." Imo is probably the most celebrated of animal innovators. In fact, many animals will invent new behavior patterns, adjust established behaviors to a novel context, or respond in an appropriate and novel manner.
Innovation is an imporant component of behavioral plasticity, vital to the survival of individuals, and potentially of critical importance to those endangered or threatened species forced to adjust to changed or impoverished environments. Innovation may also have played a central role in avian and primate brain evolution. Yet until recently, animal innovation has been subject to almost complete neglect by behavioral biologists, psychologists, social learning researchers, and biologists.
This is the first ever book on "animal innovation." Bringing together leading scientific authoritities on animal and human innovation, this will be an important publication--one that will put the topic of animal innovation on the map, and heighten awareness of this developing field.
Synopsis
Many animals will invent new behavior patterns, adjust established behaviors to a novel context, or respond to stresses in an appropriate and novel manner. This is the first ever book on the topic of "animal innovation." Bringing together leading scientific authorities on animal and human innovation, this book will put the topic of animal innovation on the map, and highten awareness of this developing field.
Table of Contents
Part I - Definitions and Key Questions 1. Animal innovation: an introduction, Kevin Laland and Simon Reader
Part II - Comparative and Evolutionary Analyses of Innovation
2. Positive and negative correlates of feeding innovations in birds: evidence for limited modularity, Louis Lefebvre and Johan J. Bolhuis
3. Behavioural innovation: a neglected issue in the ecological and evolutionary literature?, Daniel Sol
4. Environmental variability and primate behavioural flexibility, Simon M. Reader and Katherine MacDonald
5. Is innovation in bird song adaptive?, Peter J.B. Slater and Robert F. Lachlan
6. Social Learning: Promoter or inhibitor of innovation?, Bennett G. Galef Jr
Part III - Patterns and Causes of Animal Innovation
7. Experimental studies of innovation in the guppy, Kevin N. Laland and Yfke Van Bergen
8. The role of neophobia and neophilia in the development of innovative behaviour of birds, Russell Greenberg
9. Characteristics and propensities of marmosets and tamarins: Implications for studies of innovation, Hilary O. Box
Part IV - Innovation, Intelligence, and Cognition
10. Conditions of innovative behaviour in primates, Hans Kummer and Jane Goodall
11. Novelty in deceit, Richard W. Byrne
12. Innovation as a behavioural response to environmental challenges: a cost and benefit approach, Phyllis C. Lee
13. Innovation and creativity in forest-living rehabilitant orangutans, Anne E. Russon
Part V - Human Innovation
14. Human innovation: two Darwinian analyses, Dean Keith Simonton
Part VI - Discussion
16. to innovate or not to innovate? That is the question, Marc D Hauser