Animal innovation defined and operationalized

摘要: Innovation is a key component of most definitions culture and intelligence. Additionally, innovations may affect species' ecology evolution. Nonetheless, conceptual empirical work on innovation has only recently begun. In particular, largely because the existing operational definition (first occurrence in population) requires long-term studies populations, there been no systematic study wild animals. To facilitate such study, we have produced new innovation: process that generates an individual novel learned behavior not simply consequence social learning or environmental induction. Using this definition, propose approach for distinguishing field. The criteria employ information from following sources: (1) behavior's geographic local prevalence frequency; (2) properties behavior, as role context which exhibited, its similarity to other behaviors; (3) changes over time; (4) knowledge spontaneous experimentally induced captivity. These do require at single site, but multiple populations species will generally be needed. are systematized into dichotomous can used assess whether observed field likely innovation.