The reluctant innovator: orangutans and the phylogeny of creativity
| Autor: | C P van Schaik, Laura A. Damerius, Judith M. Burkart, Sofia I. F. Forss, Kathelijne Koops, Caroline Schuppli, M A van Noordwijk |
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| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
media_common.quotation_subject Population Animals Wild 010603 evolutionary biology 01 natural sciences General Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular Biology Creativity Animals 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences 050102 behavioral science & comparative psychology education Sociality Phylogeny media_common education.field_of_study Behavior Animal Ecology 05 social sciences Novelty Pongo Articles Social learning Preference Curiosity Animals Zoo General Agricultural and Biological Sciences Psychology Cognitive load Cognitive psychology |
| Zdroj: | Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences. 371(1690) |
| ISSN: | 1471-2970 |
| Popis: | Young orangutans are highly neophobic, avoid independent exploration and show a preference for social learning. Accordingly, they acquire virtually all their learned skills through exploration that is socially induced. Adult exploration rates are also low. Comparisons strongly suggest that major innovations, i.e. behaviours that have originally been brought into the population through individual invention, are made where ecological opportunities to do so are propitious. Most populations nonetheless have large innovation repertoires, because innovations, once made, are retained well through social transmission. Wild orangutans are therefore not innovative. In striking contrast, zoo-living orangutans actively seek novelty and are highly exploratory and innovative, probably because of positive reinforcement, active encouragement by human role models, increased sociality and an expectation of safety. The explanation for this contrast most relevant to hominin evolution is that captive apes generally have a highly reduced cognitive load, in particular owing to the absence of predation risk, which strongly reduces the costs of exploration. If the orangutan results generalize to other great apes, this suggests that our ancestors could have become more curious once they had achieved near-immunity to predation on the eve of the explosive increase in creativity characterizing the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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