Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T12:10:49.815Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Defining and detecting innovation: Are cognitive and developmental mechanisms important?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2007

Brooke L. Sargeant  and
Janet Mann
Brooke L. Sargeant
Affiliation:
Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199; [email protected]://www.brookesargeant.com
Janet Mann
Affiliation:
Departments of Psychology and Biology, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057. [email protected]://bioserver.georgetown.edu/faculty/Mann/janet.html
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although the authors' ingenuity in identifying criteria for innovation for field studies is appealing, most field studies will lack adequate data. Additionally, their definition does not clearly distinguish innovation from individual learning and is vague about cognitive mechanisms involved. We suggest that developmental data are essential to identifying the causes and consequences of learning new behaviors.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , August 2007 , pp. 423 - 424
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

Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. (1985) Culture and evolutionary processes. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chilvers, B. L. & Corkeron, P. J. (2001) Trawling and bottlenose dolphins' social structure. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences 268:1901–905.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Herman, L. M. (2002) Exploring the cognitive world of the bottlenose dolphin. In: The cognitive animal, ed. Bekoff, M., Allen, C. & Burghardt, G. M.. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Krützen, M., Mann, J., Heithaus, M. R., Connor, R. C., Bejder, L. & Sherwin, W. B. (2005) Cultural transmission of tool use in bottlenose dolphins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 102:8939–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Laland, K. N. & Janik, V. (2006) The animal cultures debate. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 21(10):542–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lonsdorf, E. V., Eberly, L. E. & Pusey, A. E. (2004) Sex differences in learning in chimpanzees. Nature 428:715–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mann, J. & Kemps, C. (2003) The effects of provisioning on maternal care in wild bottlenose dolphins, Shark Bay, Australia. In: Marine mammals: Fisheries, tourism and management issues, ed. Gales, N., Hindell, M. & Kirkwood, R.. CSIRO Publishing.Google Scholar
Mann, J. & Sargeant, B. (2003) Like mother, like calf: The ontogeny of foraging traditions in wild Indian Ocean bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.). In: The biology of traditions: Models and evidence, ed. Fragaszy, D. M. & Perry, S.. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Reader, S. M. (2002) Social intelligence, innovation and enhanced brain size in primates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 99:4436–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reader, S. M. (2003a) Animal innovation: An introduction. In: Animal innovation, ed. Reader, S. M. & Laland, K. N., pp. 3–35. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reader, S. M. & Laland, K. N., eds. (2003b) Animal innovation. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rendell, L. & Whitehead, H. (2001) Culture in whales and dolphins. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24(2):309–82.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sargeant, B. L., Mann, J., Berggren, P. & Krützen, M. (2005) Specialization and development of beach hunting, a rare foraging behavior, by wild bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.). Canadian Journal of Zoology 83:1400–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sargeant, B. L., Wirsing, A. J., Heithaus, M. R. & Mann, J. (2007) Can environmental heterogeneity explain individual foraging variation in wild bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.)? Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 61:679–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thornton, A. & McAuliffe, K. (2006) Teaching in wild meerkats. Science 313:227–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whitehead, H. (2007) Learning, climate and evolution of cultural capacity. Journal of Theoretical Biology 245:341–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed