The ability to act on information flexibly is one of the cornerstones of intelligent behavior. As
particularly informative example, tool-oriented behavior has been investigated to determine …

A growing set of observational studies documenting putative cultural variations in wild
animal populations has been complemented by experimental studies that can more …

Innovation is a key component of most definitions of culture and intelligence. Additionally,
innovations may affect a species' ecology and evolution. Nonetheless, conceptual and …

Innovative problem solving enables individuals to deal with novel social and ecological
challenges. However, our understanding of the importance of innovation for animals in their …

Human behaviour is often based on social learning, a mechanism that has been
documented also in a variety of other vertebrates. However, social learning as a means of …

Mechanisms of imitation and social matching play a fundamental role in development,
communication, interaction, learning and culture. Their investigation in different agents …

The last several decades of research on avian cognition have revealed surprising parallels
between the abilities of birds—most notably corvids—and great apes. Parrots, albeit far less …

Experiments have shown that captive great apes are capable of observational learning, and
patterns of cultural variation between populations suggest that they use this capacity in the …

Despite major evolutionary implications, patterns of social information transmission in
natural populations remain poorly understood. We used an experiment to examine the …

Ecological and evolutionary drivers of innovativeness among species are relatively well
studied, but the significance of similar variation within species is much less well understood …