Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T10:43:51.026Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Context-specific neophilia and its consequences for innovations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2007

Claudia Mettke-Hofmann
Affiliation:
Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, National Zoological Park, Washington, DC 20008. [email protected]://www.orn.mpg.de/mitarbeiter/mettke.html

Abstract

According to Ramsey and colleagues the main constituent psychological processes of innovation are response to novelty, exploration, and the ability to recognize a novel solution. I fully support this view but point out that novelty reactions are often context-specific. I will expand on this and discuss the possible consequences of context-specific novelty reactions on the emergence of innovations.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Coleman, K. & Wilson, D. S. (1998) Shyness and boldness in Pumpkinseed sunfish: Individual differences are context specific. Animal Behaviour 56:927–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lefebvre, L., Reader, S. M. & Sol, D. (2004) Brains, innovations and evolution in birds and primates. Brain, Behavior and Evolution 63(4):233–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martin, L. B. II. & Fitzgerald, L. (2005) A taste for novelty in invading house sparrows, Passer domesticus. Behavioral Ecology 16:702707.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mettke-Hofmann, C. (2007) Object exploration of garden and Sardinian warblers peaks in spring. Ethology 113:174–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mettke-Hofmann, C., Ebert, C., Schmidt, T., Steiger, S. & Stieb, S. (2005a) Personality traits in resident and migratory warbler species. Behaviour 142:1357–75.Google Scholar
Mettke-Hofmann, C., Manthej, S., Schlicht, E., Schneider, J. & Werner, F. (under review) Spatial neophilia and neophobia in resident and migratory warblers Sylvia.Google Scholar
Mettke-Hofmann, C., Wink, M., Winkler, H. & Leisler, B. (2005b) Exploration of environmental changes relates to lifestyle. Behavioral Ecology 16:247–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reader, S. M. (2003) Innovation and social learning: Individual variation and brain evolution. Animal Biology 53:147–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sol, D., Lefebvre, L. & Domingo Rodriguez-Teijeiro, J. (2005b) Brain size, innovative propensity and migratory behaviour in temperate Palaearctic birds. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 272:1433–41.Google ScholarPubMed
van Schaik, C. P., van Noordwijk, M. A. & Wich, S. A. (2006) Innovation in wild Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii). Behaviour 143(7):839–76.Google Scholar
Webster, S. J. & Lefebvre, L. (2001) Problem solving and neophobia in a columbiform-passeriform assemblage in Barbados. Animal Behaviour 62:2332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar