Insightful Problem Solving in an Asian Elephant

Abstract

The “aha” moment or the sudden arrival of the solution to a problem is a common human experience. Spontaneous problem solving without evident trial and error behavior in humans and other animals has been referred to as insight. Surprisingly, elephants, thought to be highly intelligent, have failed to exhibit insightful problem solving in previous cognitive studies. We tested whether three Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) would use sticks or other objects to obtain food items placed out-of-reach and overhead. Without prior trial and error behavior, a 7-year-old male Asian elephant showed spontaneous problem solving by moving a large plastic cube, on which he then stood, to acquire the food. In further testing he showed behavioral flexibility, using this technique to reach other items and retrieving the cube from various locations to use as a tool to acquire food. In the cube's absence, he generalized this tool utilization technique to other objects and, when given smaller objects, stacked them in an attempt to reach the food. The elephant's overall behavior was consistent with the definition of insightful problem solving. Previous failures to demonstrate this ability in elephants may have resulted not from a lack of cognitive ability but from the presentation of tasks requiring trunk-held sticks as potential tools, thereby interfering with the trunk's use as a sensory organ to locate the targeted food.

Cognitive enrichment and welfare: Current approaches and future directions

“…However, Clark (2013) reviewed the field of marine mammal (primarily bottlenose dolphin and California sea lion, Zalophus californianus) cognition and proposed that knowledge of various species' cognitive skills could and should be used to develop appropriate cognitive enrichment. Cognitive research on other species could be applied in a similar fashion; for example we have a growing knowledge of the cognitive skills of elephants, Elephas maximus, Loxodonta africana (Foerder, Galloway, Barthel, Moore, & Reiss, 2011;Perdue, Talbot, Stone, & Beran, 2012;Plotnik, Lair, Suphachoksahakun, & de Waal, 2001), giant pandas, Ailuropoda melanoleuca (Dungl, Schratter, & Huber, 2008;Perdue, Snyder, Pratte, Marr, & Maple, 2009) and black bears, Ursus americanus (Johnson-Ulrich et al, 2016;Vonk & Beran, 2012;Vonk, Jett, & Mosteller, 2012). There has also been substantial work on the cognition (mainly physical cognition) of corvid birds (Clayton & Emery, 2005;Taylor, 2014).…”

Insight em Macacos-Prego (Sapajus spp.) com Diferentes Contextos de Treino das Habilidades Pré-Requisitos

“…Há definições de Insight que apontam para a resolução súbita e contínua de um problema (Foerder et al, 2011;Hartmann, 1931;Jackson, 1942;Köhler, 1917Köhler, /1957Pechstein & Brown, 1939). Porém, muitos estudos têm revelado que a resolução (ou não resolução) de um problema é sempre o reflexo daquilo que já foi (ou não) aprendido (Birch, 1945;Delage, 2011;Epstein, 1985b;Epstein et al, 1984;Neves Filho et al, Submetido;Pechstein & Brown, 1939).…”

“…Partindo da suposição que a história de aprendizagem poderia exercer um papel decisivo na resolução de problemas (na medida em que, nos estudos de Köh-ler somente um sujeito, dentre uma dezena de outros, mostrou-se apto a solucionar a maior parte das tarefas), diversos pesquisadores realizaram estudos de resolução de problemas com história controlada em diferentes espécies (Bingham, 1929;Pechstein & Brown 1939;Jackson, 1942;Harlow, 1949;Razran, 1961;Menzel, Davenport & Rogers, 1970;Shurcliff, Brown & Stollnitz, 1971;Frank & Frank, 1982;Nakajima & Sato, 1993;Heinrich, 1995;Werdenich & Huber, 2006;Taylor, Elliffe, Hunt, & Gray, 2010;Foerder, Galloway, Barthel, Moore & Reiss, 2011). Dentre estes trabalhos, destaca-se por motivos históri-cos o de Birch (1945).…”

Taking the Elephants' Perspective: Remembering Elephant Behavior, Cognition and Ecology in Human-Elephant Conflict Mitigation

“…We propose to address these questions using two complementary areas of research: the study of elephant behavior and cognition, and the study of elephant ecology and life history. Studies conducted both in Africa and Asia, with both captive and wild populations, show clear evidence for individual differences in a number of ecological and cognitive categories, including parasite load (Lynsdale et al, 2017), body size (Evans and Harris, 2012;Chapman et al, 2016), primiparity (Crawley et al, 2017), social hierarchy (McComb et al, 2011), innovation (Bates et al, 2008b), cooperation (Plotnik et al, 2011), problem-solving (Foerder et al, 2011), aggression (Poole, 1989), and personality (Lee and Moss, 2012;Yasui et al, 2012;Seltmann et al, 2018). Identifying whether or not specific behavioral, physical, demographic or personality traits (collected through future ecological, ethological and experimental research on captive and wild elephants) correlate with an elephant's propensity to crop-raid or engage in conflict may have important implications for preventing or managing these conflicts across different landscapes.…”