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We are said to experience insight when we suddenly and unexpectedly become aware of the solution to a problem that we previously took ourselves to be unable to solve. In the field of comparative cognition, there is rising interest in the question of whether non-human animals are capable of insightful problem-solving. Putative cases of animals demonstrating insight have generally attracted two types of criticism: first, that insight is being conflated with other cognitive capacities (e.g., causal cognition, or mental trial and error); and, second, that the relevant performances merely reflect associative learning—and on the received understanding of insight within comparative cognition, insight necessarily involves non-associative processes. I argue that even if we grant that some cases of animal insight do withstand these two criticisms, these cases of purported animal insight cannot shed light on the nature of insightful problem-solving in humans. For the phenomenon studied by cognitive psychologists under the heading of insight is fundamentally different from that studied in comparative cognition. In light of this impasse, I argue that the reinterpretation of the extant research on animal insight in terms of other high-level cognitive capacities (means-end reasoning in particular) can improve the prospect of a successful comparative research program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cerebral lateralization, which is often reflected in an individual's behavioral laterality (e.g., handedness and footedness), may bring animals certain benefits such as enhanced cognitive performance. Although the lateralization–cognition relationship has been widely studied in humans and other animals, current evidence supporting their relationship is ambiguous and warrants additional insights from more studies. Moreover, the lateralization–cognition relationship in non-human animals has been mostly studied in human-reared populations, and investigations of wild populations are particularly scarce. Here, we test the footedness of wild-caught male yellow-bellied tits (Pardaliparus venustulus) and investigate its association with their performance in learning to solve a toothpick-pulling problem and a drawer-opening problem. The tested birds showed an overall trend to gradually spent less time solving the problems, implying that they learned to solve the problems. Left- and right-footed individuals showed no significant differences in the latency to explore the experimental apparatuses and in the proportions that completed and did not complete the tasks. However, the left-footed individuals learned faster than the right-footed individuals in the drawer-opening experiment, indicating a potential cognitive advantage associated with left-footedness. These results contribute to the understanding of the behavioral differences between differently footed individuals and, in particular, the relationship between lateralization and cognitive ability in wild animals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report an observational, double-blind study that examined puppies' behaviors while engaged in solving an experimental food retrieval task (food retrieval task instrument: FRTI). The experimental setting included passive social distractors (i.e., the dog's owner and a stranger). The focus was on how the social and physical environment shapes puppies' behaviors according to sex. The dependent variables were the number of tasks solved on an apparatus (Performance Index) and the time required to solve the first task (Speed). Sex and Stress were set as explanatory factors, and Social Interest, FRTI interactions, other behavior, and age as covariates. The main findings were that male puppies solved the first task faster than females. On the other hand, females displayed significantly more social interest and did so more rapidly than males. Males showed delayed task resolution. This study demonstrates sex differences in a problem-solving task in dog puppies for the first time, thus highlighting that sexually dimorphic behavioral differences in problem-solving strategies develop early on during ontogenesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Red junglefowl (RJF), ancestor of all domesticated chickens, is a highly social, omnivorous bird species, presumably with a capacity for social information sharing. During domestication, birds have been selected to live in large, dynamic groups, and this may have affected their social cognition. Here, we studied social information transfer in female RJF and domesticated White Leghorn (WL) chickens. Individuals were trained to open a puzzle-box feeder by pecking a lid and we then recorded the behaviour towards the same puzzle-box feeder for birds that had either observed the trained individual ("guided") or saw the puzzle-box feeder for the first time ("naïve"). WL were considerably faster in approaching the feeder regardless of prior demonstration and pecked more at it. Both breeds were significantly faster to approach the puzzle-box feeder and pecked more after prior demonstration, but the effects were significantly stronger in WL. We conclude that both RJF and WL can utilize social information to address a novel problem, but during domestication this ability appears to have increased. The effects can be an effect of either social learning or stimulus enhancement. Some caution in this conclusion is necessary since we tested relatively few WL. Furthermore, possible confounding explanations include higher fearfulness in RJF and different effects of dominance interactions between demonstrators and observers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization represents a dramatic form of evolutionary novelty in the landscapes inhabited by many extant animals. The Cognitive Buffer Hypothesis suggests that innovation, the process by which animals solve novel problems or use novel behaviors, may be key for many animals when adapting to novel environments. If innovation is especially beneficial in urban environments, then we would expect urban animals to be more innovative than their non-urban counterparts. However, studies comparing innovative problem-solving between urban and rural habitats have produced mixed results. Here, we hypothesized that these findings result from comparing only two levels of urbanization when related research suggests that the stage of invasion of urban habitats likely has a strong effect on demand for innovation, with demand being highest during early establishment in a novel environment. To test this hypothesis, we assessed innovation in three locations where spotted hyenas experienced varying degrees of urbanization. Spotted hyenas are relatively innovative compared to other carnivores and, although many large carnivores in Africa are endangered, spotted hyenas remain abundant both inside and outside protected areas. We measured innovation with a multi-access puzzle box with four different doors through which hyenas could obtain a food reward. We predicted that hyenas in a transitional, rapidly urbanizing habitat would be more innovative, measured by the number of unique doors opened, than those in rural or fully urban habitats. Contrary to our predictions, hyenas in the rural habitat were the most innovative. These results challenge the idea that the evolutionary novelty associated with urbanization favors greater innovativeness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Animals adapt to changing environments by behaving flexibly when solving problems. Traits, such as sex and age, and specifically behavioral traits like persistence–the amount of time spent attempting to solve a problem, are positively associated with successful problem-solving. However, individuals face social pressures, such as aggression, which may directly alter an individual's behavior or interact with sex or age, when they attempt to problem-solve. We examined the direct and indirect effects of social position and individual behavioral traits on solving a novel puzzle box in facultatively social yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer), using both generalized linear mixed models and confirmatory path analysis. We found strong support that marmots who used a diversity of behaviors were more successful problem-solvers and weak support that those who received more aggression were less successful. Additionally, marmots who received more aggression were less behaviorally diverse, less behaviorally selective and less persistent while trying to open the puzzle box. Thus, we show that aggression indirectly decreases problem-solving success by acting on the behavioral traits that an individual uses. We conclude that specific social relationships, including the type of interaction and whether they are recipients or initiators, influences the ways in which an individual interacts with cognitive tests and should be considered in analysis of individual problem-solving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation is widely linked to cognitive ability, brain size, and adaptation to novel conditions. However, successful innovation appears to be influenced by both cognitive factors, such as inhibitory control, and non-cognitive behavioral traits. We used a multi-access box (MAB) paradigm to measure repeated innovation, the number of unique innovations learned across trials, by 10 captive spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta). Spotted hyenas are highly innovative in captivity and also display striking variation in behavioral traits, making them good model organisms for examining the relationship between innovation and other behavioral traits. We measured persistence, motor diversity, motivation, activity, efficiency, inhibitory control, and neophobia demonstrated by hyenas while interacting with the MAB. We also independently assessed inhibitory control with a detour cylinder task. Most hyenas were able to solve the MAB at least once, but only four hyenas satisfied learning criteria for all four possible solutions. Interestingly, neither measure of inhibitory control predicted repeated innovation. Instead, repeated innovation was predicted by a proactive syndrome of behavioral traits that included high persistence, high motor diversity, high activity and low neophobia. Our results suggest that this proactive behavioral syndrome may be more important than inhibitory control for successful innovation with the MAB by members of this species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When animals encounter a task they have solved previously, or the same problem appears in a different apparatus, how does memory, alongside behavioural traits such as persistence, selectivity and flexibility, enhance problem-solving efficiency? We examined this question by first presenting grey squirrels with a puzzle 22 months after their last experience of it (the recall task). Squirrels were then given the same problem presented in a physically different apparatus (the generalisation task) to test whether they would apply the previously learnt tactics to solve the same problem but in a different apparatus. The mean latency to success in the first trial of the recall task was significantly different from the first exposure but not different from the last exposure of the original task, showing retention of the task. A neophobia test in the generalisation task suggested squirrels perceived the different apparatus as a different problem, but they quickly came to apply the same effective tactics as before to solve the task. Greater selectivity (the proportion of effective behaviours) and flexibility (the rate of switching between tactics) both enhanced efficiency in the recall task, but only selectivity enhanced efficiency in the generalisation task. These results support the interaction between memory and behavioural traits in problem-solving, in particular memory of task-specific tactics that could enhance efficiency. Squirrels remembered and emitted task-effective tactics more than ineffective tactics. As a result, they consistently changed from ineffective to effective behaviours after failed attempts at problem-solving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research has suggested that a variety of factors, phylogenetic and ontogenetic, play a role in how canines behave during problem-solving tasks and the degree to which the presence of a human influences their problem-solving behaviour. While comparisons between socialized wolves and domestic dogs have commonly been used to tease apart these predictive factors, in many cases a single dog population, often pets, have been used for these comparisons. Less is understood about how different populations of dogs may behave when compared with wolves, or with each other, during an independent problem-solving task. This experiment compared the independent persistence of four populations of canines (two groups of pet domestic dogs, a group of free-ranging domestic dogs, and human-socialized wolves) on an independent problem-solving task in the presence of an on looking human. Results showed that wolves persisted the most at the task while free-ranging dogs persisted the least. Free-ranging dogs gazed at the human experimenter for the longest durations during the task. While further research is needed to understand why these differences exist, this study demonstrates that dogs, even those living outside human homes as scavengers, show comparatively low levels of persistence when confronted with a solvable task in the presence of a human as well as significantly greater duration of human-directed gaze when compared with wolves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

String-pulling is a widely used paradigm in animal cognition research to assess what animals understand about the functionality of strings as a means to obtain an out-of-reach reward. This study aimed to systematically investigate what rules Western scrub-jays ( Aphelocoma californica) use to solve different patterned string tasks, i.e. tasks in which subjects have to choose between two or more strings of which only one is connected to the reward, or where one is more efficient. Arranging strings in a parallel configuration showed that the jays were generally capable of solving multiple-string tasks and acted in a goal-directed manner. The slanted and crossed configurations revealed a reliance on a 'proximity rule', that is, a tendency to choose the string-end closest to the reward. When confronted with strings of different lengths attached to rewards at different distances the birds chose according to the reward distance, preferring the reward closest to them, and were sensitive to the movement of the reward, but did not consistently prefer the shorter and therefore more efficient string. Generally, the scrub-jays were successful in tasks where the reward was closest to the string-ends they needed to pull or when string length and reward distance correlated, but the birds had problems when the wrong string-end was closest to the reward or when the food items were in close proximity to each other. These results show that scrub-jays had a partial understanding of the physical principles underlying string-pulling but relied on simpler strategies such as the proximity rule to solve the tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The generation and maintenance of within-population variation in cognitive abilities remain poorly understood. Recent theories propose that this variation might reflect the existence of consistent cognitive strategies distributed along a slow-fast continuum influenced by shyness. The slow-fast continuum might be reflected in the well-known speed-accuracy trade-off, where animals cannot simultaneously maximise the speed and the accuracy with which they perform a task. We test this idea on 49 wild-caught Carib grackles ( Quiscalus lugubris), a tame opportunistic generalist Icterid bird in Barbados. Grackles that are fast at solving novel problems involving obstacle removal to reach visible food perform consistently over two different tasks, spend more time per trial attending to both tasks, and are those that show more shyness in a pretest. However, they are also the individuals that make more errors in a colour discrimination task requiring no new motor act. Our data reconcile some of the mixed positive and negative correlations reported in the comparative literature on cognitive tasks, suggesting that a speed-accuracy trade-off could lead to negative correlations between tasks favouring speed and tasks favouring accuracy, but still reveal consistent strategies based on stable individual differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Testing animals individually in problem-solving tasks limits distractions of the subjects during the test, so that they can fully concentrate on the problem. However, such individual performance may not indicate the problem-solving capacity that is commonly employed in the wild when individuals are faced with a novel problem in their social groups, where the presence of a conspecific influences an individual's behaviour. To assess the validity of data gathered from parrots when tested individually, we compared the performance on patterned-string tasks among parrots tested singly and parrots tested in social context. We tested two captive groups of orange-winged amazons (Amazona amazonica) with several patterned-string tasks. Despite the differences in the testing environment (singly vs. social context), parrots from both groups performed similarly. However, we found that the willingness to participate in the tasks was significantly higher for the individuals tested in social context. The study provides further evidence for the crucial influence of social context on individual's response to a challenging situation such as a problem-solving test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the importance of individual problem solvers for group- and individual-level fitness, the correlates of individual problem-solving success are still an open topic of investigation. In addition to demographic factors, such as age or sex, certain personality dimensions have also been revealed as reliable correlates of problem-solving by animals. Such correlates, however, have been little-studied in chimpanzees. To empirically test the influence of age, sex, estrous state, and different personality factors on chimpanzee problem-solving, we individually tested 36 captive chimpanzees with two novel foraging puzzles. We included both female ( N = 24) and male ( N = 12) adult chimpanzees (aged 14-47 years) in our sample. We also controlled for the females' estrous state-a potential influence on cognitive reasoning-by testing cycling females both when their sexual swelling was maximally tumescent (associated with the luteinizing hormone surge of a female's estrous cycle) and again when it was detumescent. Although we found no correlation between the chimpanzees' success with either puzzle and their age or sex, the chimpanzees' personality ratings did correlate with responses to the novel foraging puzzles. Specifically, male chimpanzees that were rated highly on the factors Methodical, Openness (to experience), and Dominance spent longer interacting with the puzzles. There was also a positive relationship between the latency of females to begin interacting with the two tasks and their rating on the factor Reactivity/Undependability. No other significant correlations were found, but we report tentative evidence for increased problem-solving success by the females when they had detumescent estrous swellings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Animals may experience positive affective states in response to their own achievements. We investigated emotional responses to problem-solving in dogs, separating these from reactions to rewards per se using a yoked control design. We also questioned whether the intensity of reaction would vary with reward type. We examined the response (behavior and heart rate) of dogs as they learned to gain access to different rewards: (1) food (2) human contact, and (3) dog contact. Twelve beagles were assigned to matched pairs, and each dog served as both an experimental and a control animal during different stages of the experiment. We trained all dogs to perform distinct operant tasks and exposed them to additional devices to which they were not trained. Later, dogs were tested in a new context. When acting as an experimental dog, access to the reward was granted immediately upon completion of trained operant tasks. When acting as a control, access to the reward was independent of the dog's actions and was instead granted after a delay equal to their matched partner's latency to complete their task. Thus, differences between the two situations could be attributed to experimental dogs having the opportunity to learn to control access to the reward. Experimental dogs showed signs of excitement (e.g., increased tail wagging and activity) in response to their achievements, whereas controls showed signs of frustration (e.g., chewing of the operant device) in response to the unpredictability of the situation. The intensity of emotional response in experimental dogs was influenced by the reward type, i.e., greatest response to food and least to another dog. Our results suggest that dogs react emotionally to problem-solving opportunities and that tail wagging may be a useful indicator of positive affective states in dogs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have shown that elementary aspects of numerical abilities have developed in non-human primates. In the present study, we explored the potential for the development of a novel ability in the use of numerical operations by macaque monkeys ( Macaca fuscata): adequate selection of a series of numerical actions toward achieving a behavioral goal. We trained monkeys to use a pair of devices to selectively add or subtract items to/from a digital array in order to match a previously viewed sample array. The monkeys determined whether to add or subtract on the basis of the feedback about numerosity given to the monkeys, which was displayed as an outcome of each step of the numerical operation. We also found that monkeys adapted flexibly to changes in the numerical rule that determined the relationship between device use and numerical operation. Our model analysis found that the numerosity-based model was a better fit for the monkeys' performance than was the reward-expectation-based model. Such a capacity for goal-oriented selection of numerical operations suggests a mechanism by which monkeys use numerical representations for purposeful behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Domestic dogs ( Canis familiaris) have been shown to actively initiate triadic communicative interactions by looking at a human partner or by alternating their gaze between the human and an object when being faced with an out-of-reach reward or an unsolvable problem. It has hardly been investigated, however, whether dogs flexibly adjust their human-directed behavior to the actions of their partners, which indicate their willingness and abilities to help them when they are faced with a problem. Here, in two experiments, we confronted dogs-after initially allowing them to learn how to manipulate an apparatus-with two problem situations: with an empty apparatus and a blocked apparatus. In Experiment 1, we showed that dogs looked back at their owners more when the owners had previously encouraged them, independently from the problem they faced. In Experiment 2, we provided dogs with two experimenters and allowed them to learn through an initial phase that each of the experimenters could solve one of the two problems: the Filler re-baited the empty apparatus and the Helper unblocked the blocked apparatus. We found that dogs could learn to recognize the ability of the Filler and spent time close to her when the apparatus was empty. Independently from the problem, however, they always approached the Helper first. The results of the present study indicate that dogs may have a limited understanding of physical problems and how they can be solved by a human partner. Nevertheless, dogs are able to adjust their behavior to situation-specific characteristics of their human partner's behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Apparently sophisticated behaviour during problem-solving is often the product of simple underlying mechanisms, such as associative learning or the use of procedural rules. These and other more parsimonious explanations need to be eliminated before higher-level cognitive processes such as causal reasoning or planning can be inferred. We presented three Bornean orangutans with 64 trial-unique configurations of a puzzle-tube to investigate whether they were able to consider multiple obstacles in two alternative paths, and subsequently choose the correct direction in which to move a reward in order to retrieve it. We were particularly interested in how subjects attempted to solve the task, namely which behavioural strategies they could have been using, as this is how we may begin to elucidate the cognitive mechanisms underpinning their choices. To explore this, we simulated performance outcomes across the 64 trials for various procedural rules and rule combinations that subjects may have been using based on the configuration of different obstacles. Two of the three subjects solved the task, suggesting that they were able to consider at least some of the obstacles in the puzzle-tube before executing action to retrieve the reward. This is impressive compared with the past performances of great apes on similar, arguably less complex tasks. Successful subjects may have been using a heuristic rule combination based on what they deemed to be the most relevant cue (the configuration of the puzzle-tube ends), which may be a cognitively economical strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans are able to benefit from a causally structured problem-solving context rather than arbitrarily structured situations. In order to better understand nonhuman causal cognition, it is therefore important to isolate crucial factors that might differentiate between events that follow a purely spatial and temporal contingency and those that hold a 'true' causal relationship. In the first of two experiments, chimpanzee subjects were required to detect a bottle containing juice from five opaque bottles of equal shape and size. In the causal condition, the juice bottle looked identical to the other four bottles, only it was much heavier than the others. In the arbitrary condition, the weight of all five bottles was identical, but the juice bottle was color-marked differently. Since bottle opening was made difficult (and therefore costly), the question was whether subject's manipulative behavior would be random or somehow influenced by the nature of the provided information. Our results show that subjects detected and opened the juice bottle significantly faster when weight was the discriminating feature ( causal condition) compared to situations in which the discrimination was necessarily based on a color-cue ( arbitrary condition). Experiment 2 ruled out the possibility of a general learning bias toward tactile rather than visual information in chimpanzees. When tested in a simple exchange paradigm that prevented any use of causal information, no predominance of a tactile cue (weight) over a visual cue (color) could be found. Furthermore-and in contrast to the causal condition in Experiment 1-no learning occurred during the course of Experiment 2, neither in the weight nor in the color condition. We therefore conclude that chimpanzees can more easily determine the content of an object based on its causal properties compared to situations in which the only available information is a pure arbitrary regularity. This supports the view that chimpanzees' causal cognition does not rely on mere perceptual information but also on structural abstraction about their physical environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the functionally relevant properties of objects is likely facilitated by learning with a critical role for past experience. However, current evidence is conflicting regarding the effect of prior object exposure on acquisition of object manipulation skills. This may be due to the influence of life history variables on the capacity to benefit from such experience. This study assessed effect of task-relevant object exposure on object-mediated problem-solving in 22 gibbons using a raking-in task. Despite not using tools habitually, 14 gibbons spontaneously used a rake to obtain a reward. Having prior experience with the rake in an unrewarded context did not improve learning efficiency in males. However, females benefitted significantly from the opportunity to interact with the rake before testing, with reduced latencies to solution compared to those with no previous exposure. These results reflect potential sex differences in approach to novelty that moderate the possible benefits of prior experience. Due to their relatively high energetic requirements, reproductively active females may be highly motivated to explore potential resources; however, increased investment in developing offspring could make them more guarded in their investigations. Previous exposure that allows females to learn of an object's neutrality can offset this cautious exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although parrots share with corvids and primates many of the traits believed to be associated with advanced cognitive processing, knowledge of parrot cognition is still limited to a few species, none of which are Neotropical. Here we examine the ability of three Neotropical parrot species (Blue-Fronted Amazons, Hyacinth and Lear’s macaws) to spontaneously solve a novel physical problem: the string-pulling test. The ability to pull up a string to obtain out-of-reach food has been often considered a cognitively complex task, as it requires the use of a sequence of actions never previously assembled, along with the ability to continuously monitor string, food and certain body movements. We presented subjects with pulling tasks where we varied the spatial relationship between the strings, the presence of a reward and the physical contact between the string and reward to determine whether (1) string-pulling is goal-oriented in these parrots, (2) whether the string is recognized as a means to obtain the reward and (3) whether subjects can visually determine the continuity between the string and the reward, selecting only those strings for which no physical gaps between string and reward were present. Our results show that some individuals of all species were able to use the string as a means to reach a specific goal, in this case, the retrieval of the food treat. Also, subjects from both macaw species were able to visually determine the presence of physical continuity between the string and reward, making their choices consistently with the recognition that no gaps should be present between the string and the reward. Our findings highlight the potential of this taxonomic group for the understanding of the underpinnings of cognition in evolutionarily distant groups such as birds and primates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) were tested in four experiments for their understanding of means-end connections. In each of the experiments, the dogs attempted to retrieve a food treat that could be seen behind a barrier and which was connected, via string, to a within-reach wooden block. In the experiments, either one or two strings were present, but the treat was attached only to one string. Successful retrieval of the treat required the animals to pull the appropriate string (either by pawing or by grasping the wooden block in their jaws) until the treat emerged from under the barrier. The results showed that the dogs were successful if the treat was in a perpendicular line to the barrier, i.e. straight ahead, but not when the string was at an angle: in the latter condition, the typical response was a proximity error in that the dogs pawed or mouthed at a location closest in line to the treat. When two strings that crossed were present, the dogs tended to pull on the wrong string. The combined results from the experiments show that, although dogs can learn to pull on a string to obtain food, they do not spontaneously understand means-end connections involving strings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]