Conditions of Innovative Behaviour in Primates

Innovative behaviour achieved through exploration, learning and insight heavily depends on certain motivational, social and ecological conditions of short duration. We propose that more attention should be given to what these conditions are and where they are realized in natural groups of non-human primates. Only to the extent that such favourable conditions were frequently realized in a social structure or an extraspecific environment could selective pressures act on innovative abilities. There is hope that research into field conditions of innovative behaviour will help to identify its selectors in evolution.

[1]  Carol Barner-Barry,et al.  Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes. Frans de Waal. New York: Harper & Row, 1982 , 1984 .

[2]  S. Uehara,et al.  Local Differences in plant-feeding Habits of chimpanzees between the Mahale Mountains and Gombe National Park, Tanzania , 1983 .

[3]  C. Boesch,et al.  Optimisation of Nut-Cracking With Natural Hammers By Wild Chimpanzees , 1983 .

[4]  F. D. Waal.  Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes , 1982 .

[5]  Christophe Boesch,et al.  Sex differences in the use of natural hammers by wild chimpanzees: A preliminary report , 1981 .

[6]  K. Milton.  Distribution Patterns of Tropical Plant Foods as an Evolutionary Stimulus to Primate Mental Development , 1981 .

[7]  W. McGrew,et al.  Evidence for a Social Custom in Wild Chimpanzees , 1978 .

[8]  Janet Goodall,et al.  The recent rise to the alpha-rank in a population of free-living chimpanzees. , 1977, Folia primatologica; international journal of primatology.

[9]  F. Strayer.  Learning and imitation as a function of social status in macaque monkeys (Macaca nemestrina) , 1976, Animal Behaviour.

[10]  N. Humphrey.  The Social Function of Intellect , 1976 .

[11]  R. Wrangham.  The behavioural ecology of chimpanzees in Gombe National Park, Tanzania , 1975 .

[12]  J. Bygott.  Agonistic behaviour and dominance in wild chimpanzees , 1974 .

[13]  E. W. Menzel,et al.  Chapter 3 - A Group of Young Chimpanzees in a One-Acre Field1 , 1974 .

[14]  H. Kummer,et al.  Primate Societies: Group Techniques of Ecological Adaptation , 1971 .

[15]  R. Gardner,et al.  Teaching sign language to a chimpanzee. , 1969, Science.

[16]  A. Jolly,et al.  Lemur Social Behavior and Primate Intelligence , 1966, Science.

[17]  E. Menzel.  Patterns of responsiveness in chimpanzees reared through infancy under conditions of environmental restriction , 1964, Psychologische Forschung.

[18]  P. Schiller.  Innate constituents of complex responses in primates. , 1952, Psychological review.

[19]  W. Köhler.  The Mentality of Apes. , 2018, Nature.