problem solving examples in animals

18 Animals With Incredible Problem-Solving Skills

Animals are far smarter than we often give them credit for. Many species have shown remarkable abilities to solve complex problems, often rivaling human intelligence in specific tasks. Let’s explore 18 animals that demonstrate extraordinary problem-solving skills, leaving us in awe of their cognitive abilities.

Chimpanzees

Our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, chimpanzees, are master problem-solvers. They use tools like sticks to fish for termites and rocks to crack open nuts. In labs, chimps have learned to use symbols and basic language to communicate with humans. They can even plan ahead, saving tools for future use, which shows a level of forethought once thought unique to humans.

Octopuses are the brainiacs of the sea. These eight-armed wonders can unscrew jar lids, squeeze through tiny spaces, and even use coconut shells as portable shelters. In one famous escape, an octopus at the New Zealand National Aquarium repeatedly broke out of its tank at night to feast on fish in nearby exhibits. Their problem-solving skills are so advanced that some scientists argue they should be treated as sentient beings in research settings.

Elephants have long been admired for their intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They’ve been observed using branches as fly swatters and digging wells to access underground water. In experiments, elephants have shown they can cooperate to pull two ends of a rope simultaneously to receive a reward, demonstrating an understanding of teamwork. They even seem to comfort each other in times of distress, showing emotional intelligence.

Crows are among the smartest birds, with problem-solving skills that rival those of great apes. They craft tools from twigs and wire to retrieve food, and some have even learned to use cars as nutcrackers by dropping nuts in front of wheels at traffic lights. Crows can also recognize human faces and hold grudges against people who’ve wronged them, passing this information to other crows.

Dolphins are renowned for their intelligence and social skills. They use echolocation to find food and navigate, but their problem-solving goes beyond that. Dolphins have been observed using sea sponges as protective nose guards while foraging on the seabed. They also demonstrate self-awareness by recognizing themselves in mirrors, a trait shared by only a few animal species.

Pigs are much smarter than their reputation suggests. They can learn to play simple video games with joysticks, understand basic arithmetic, and even use mirrors to find hidden food. Pigs have been observed using tools and can quickly learn new routines. Their intelligence is often compared to that of a three-year-old child.

Orangutans are skilled problem-solvers, especially when it comes to obtaining food. They use leaves as umbrellas and napkins, and sticks to test water depth or fish for termites. In captivity, orangutans have been known to unpick locks and even plan and communicate escape attempts. Their ability to learn and use human sign language demonstrates their advanced cognitive abilities.

Often seen as nuisance animals, raccoons are actually quite clever. They can remember solutions to tasks for up to three years and have been observed using tools. In one study, raccoons quickly figured out how to unlock complex mechanisms to access food. Their adaptability in urban environments is a testament to their problem-solving skills.

Border Collies

While many dogs are intelligent, Border Collies stand out for their exceptional problem-solving abilities. They can learn complex tasks and commands, often understanding over 1,000 words. One famous Border Collie named Chaser learned the names of over 1,000 objects and could retrieve them on command. Their ability to reason and solve puzzles makes them excel in agility competitions and as working dogs.

Rats are surprisingly intelligent creatures. They can learn to play hide-and-seek with humans and even show signs of regret when making wrong choices. Rats demonstrate empathy, freeing trapped companions even when there’s no reward for doing so. Their problem-solving skills extend to navigating complex mazes and understanding cause-and-effect relationships.

African Grey Parrots

African Grey Parrots are known for their exceptional vocal abilities, but their intelligence goes far beyond mimicry. They can understand abstract concepts, use human language meaningfully, and solve simple math problems. One famous African Grey named Alex could identify colors, shapes, and numbers, and even ask questions about objects, demonstrating a level of comprehension previously thought impossible in birds.

Goats might seem like simple farm animals, but they’re surprisingly clever. They can solve complex puzzles to access food and remember how to complete tasks for at least 10 months. Goats have been observed using tools and can understand human cues, such as pointing. Their social intelligence allows them to learn from watching other goats solve problems.

Despite their tiny brains, ants are remarkable problem-solvers. They work together to build bridges and rafts out of their own bodies, solve traffic problems in their colonies, and find the most efficient paths to food sources. Ants can even ‘teach’ each other new skills, a form of learning called tandem running. Their collective intelligence allows them to solve problems that would be impossible for a single ant.

Bees are master navigators and communicators. They can solve simple math problems, understand the concept of zero, and make complex decisions about where to build new hives. Bees use a sophisticated ‘dance language’ to communicate the location of food sources to their hivemates. Recent studies suggest they might even understand abstract concepts like ‘sameness’ and ‘difference’.

Squirrels are more than just acrobats of the tree world. They show impressive problem-solving skills, especially when it comes to accessing food. Squirrels can learn to navigate complex obstacle courses and remember the solutions for long periods. They’re also masters of deception, often pretending to bury nuts to throw off potential thieves.

New Caledonian Crows

New Caledonian Crows are tool-making experts. They craft hooks from twigs to fish out grubs from trees, a skill once thought unique to humans. These crows can solve multi-step puzzles and have even demonstrated understanding of water displacement, dropping stones into water to raise its level and access floating food.

Kea Parrots

Native to New Zealand, Kea Parrots are known for their curiosity and intelligence. They can solve logical puzzles and work together to complete tasks. Keas have been observed using tools and even disantling cars, seemingly out of sheer curiosity. Their playful nature and problem-solving abilities have earned them the nickname “clowns of the mountains.”

Bonobos, along with chimpanzees, are our closest living relatives. They excel at cooperative problem-solving, often outperforming human children in tasks that require teamwork. Bonobos can use tools, understand basic language, and even show empathy towards others. Their social intelligence is particularly advanced, using reconciliation and cooperation to solve conflicts within their groups.

Becky Britton

Becky is a fervent wildlife enthusiast and pet care expert with a diploma in canine nutrition. Her love for animals stretches beyond the domestic, embracing the wild tapestry of global fauna. With over a decade of experience in animal welfare, Becky lends her expertise to OutlandishOwl through insightful articles, captivating wildlife information, and invaluable guidance on pet nutrition. Her work embodies a deep commitment to understanding the intricate lives of animals and a passion for educating others on sustaining natural habitats. Becky's hands-on conservation efforts and her knack for translating complex dietary science into practical pet feeding tips make her an indispensable voice for creatures great and small.

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7 of the most impressive feats of animal intelligence

by Joseph Stromberg

Animals are far smarter than we ever realized.

If we’ve learned one thing from the past few decades of animal research, it’s that many species have much more going on inside their brains than we previously thought. Experiments show that animals can solve puzzles, learn words, and communicate with each other in remarkably sophisticated ways.

Here are a few of the most impressive feats we’ve seen thus far.

1) Crows can solve puzzles as well as five-year-olds

A series of recent experiments have revealed crows’ remarkably sophisticated problem-solving skills.

In one study conducted at the University of Auckland, researchers found that when presented with tubes of water that contained a floating treat, crows figured out that dropping other objects into the tubes would cause the water level to rise, making the treat accessible. They also figured out that they could get the treats fastest if they chose tubes with higher water levels to start, and if they dropped objects that sank, rather than ones that floated.

Other research , meanwhile, has shown that crows can intentionally bend a piece of wire in order to fish a treat out of a narrow tube. On the whole, researchers put their problem-solving skills roughly on par with those of 5 to 7 year-old children.

2) Dolphins call each other by unique names

Dolphins are remarkably intelligent in all sorts of ways . In captivity, they can be quickly trained to complete tasks for treats and are known to mimic human behavior solely for the fun of it. In the wild, they're been observed putting sponges over their snouts to protect themselves from spiny fish while hunting, and killing spiny fish so they can use their spines to extract eels from crevices.

a dolphin's whistle seems to be much like its name

But one of the most striking examples of how smart they are is the fact that each dolphin seems to have a characteristic whistle that represents itself. In other words, a dolphin’s whistle seems to be much like its name.

In experiments , dolphins will swim towards a speaker emitting the whistle of a family member much more often than an unknown dolphin's, and when a mother dolphin is separated from her calf, she'll emit the calve's whistle until they're reunited. Most recently, researchers found that dolphins behave differently upon hearing the whistle of a dolphin they'd last seen 20 years earlier, compared to a stranger's — they're much more likely to approach the speaker and whistle at it repeatedly, trying to get it to whistle back.

3) Elephants can cooperate and show empathy

For years, researchers in the field have observed elephants cooperating in sophisticated ways . Families of related elephants travel together in clans, communicating via low-frequency rumbles. At times, they'll form circles around calves to protect them from predators, or carry out coordinated kidnappings of calves from competing clans in shows of dominance.

More recently, the same levels of coordination have been observed in controlled experiments. In one , pairs of elephants quickly learned to pull on a rope at the same time to get a treat — and not to pull alone, as that would have ruined the chance of getting it.

Other work seems to suggest that elephants can show genuine empathy.

In general, animals show little interest in dead members of their species — typically, they briefly sniff them before walking away or eating them. Elephants, however, show a special interest in elephant remains, lingering near them and in some cases becoming agitated around them. One study quantified this behavior: when shown an elephant skull, African elephants spent twice as long looking at it as buffalo or rhino skulls, and they investigated sticks of ivory for six times as long as pieces of wood.

Finally, field researchers have observed elephants consoling each other — something seldom seen in other species. Typically, when an elephant becomes perturbed, it'll make squeaking noises and perk its ears up. Frequently, other elephants from the same clan will come and stroke its head with their trunks, or put their trunk in its mouth.

4) Dogs can learn hundreds of words

There are many different examples of canine intelligence , but one of the most remarkable is a border collie named Chaser . A psychology researcher named John Pilley has trained Chaser to recognize the names of 1,022 different toys. When Pilley names a specific toy, Chaser is able to retrieve the correct one more than 95 percent of the time.

Recently, Pilley taught Chaser verbs , in addition to nouns: she can follow instructions to pick a toy up, put her nose on it, or put her paw on it. All this took countless hours of training — and all dogs might not be capable of it — but it's still a remarkable achievement of canine intelligence.

5) Chimps are crazy good at memory puzzles

It may not be a huge surprise that chimps are smart, given that they’re our closest relatives. But the degree of their intelligence — and, in some areas, the way it rivals human intelligence — is remarkable.

A chimp named Ayumu who lives at a research institute in Kyoto, Japan, for instance, has become world-famous for his performance on a speed and memory-based game. As part of the game, 9 numbers are shown are shown in particular spots on a screen for a fraction of a second, and the player must remember their location and reproduce it afterward. You can play a simplified version of the game here .

ayumu is better than any human who's challenged him thus far

Ayumu is not only capable of playing this game, but is better than any human who’s challenged him so far. When the numbers are shown for an extremely short amount of time (as little as 60 milliseconds), Ayumu is significantly more accurate than people, including college students and memory champions.

Scientists still don't entirely understand how he's so good, but they hypothesize he's doing something called subitizing — looking at a number of objects and immediately taking them in without sequentially counting them. Most humans can do this for up to four items, but Ayumu may be capable of doing it for many more.

6) Cockatoos can pick locks

Cockatoos, like crows, can solve difficult puzzles in order to get treats. And a 2013 study showed just how complex these puzzles can be: they required the birds to open a box (which contained a cashew) by removing a pin, unscrewing a screw, pulling out a bolt, turning a wheel, and finally sliding out a latch.

Obviously, this takes a long time for an animal that doesn’t have opposable thumbs. But one cockatoo worked at it for a full two hours, ultimately solving the puzzle and showing that the birds are capable of striving towards goals that are much more distant than the researchers had previously thought.

Other birds in the experiment, meanwhile, learned from the first bird and completed the whole puzzle much more quickly. And when the puzzle was altered so that the five steps had to be completed in a different order, the birds seemed to understand this, and attacked it accordingly instead of trying to replicate the previous solution.

7) Octopuses are weirdly intelligent in ways we don’t understand

(DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Octopus intelligence is tough to study for a few reasons: they’re aquatic, difficult to keep alive in captivity, and most live relatively deep in the ocean. Most importantly, octopuses inhabit an environment dramatically different than ours — so it stands to reason that their intelligence is directed at solving very different goals.

But some scientists believe that they're smart in ways that are qualitatively different from us and the other species on this list. One reason is that they have the largest brains of any invertebrate — but though they actually have more neurons than humans, sixty percent of these cells are in their arms, not their brains. As a result, t heir arms seem to be individually intelligent: when cut off, they can crawl away, grab food items, and lift them up to where the octopus' mouth would be if they were still connected.

Meanwhile, octopuses seem to have a keen sense of aesthetics, even though they're likely colorblind. F ield researchers have observed octopuses collect rocks of a specific color to camouflage their den, and many species can change color to blend in with their environment. The way they accomplish this, it's hypothesized, is that they actually sense color with their skin itself and respond accordingly.

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8 of the Animal Kingdom’s Most Clever Problem Solvers

Who ever said Mr. Fix-it had to be human?

1. Crows Make Dining Utensils

They say humans are toolmakers, but crows may be just as handy. The birds are known to pry out grubs buried inside trees with twigs. They’ll then strip off the twig’s bark and bend the end, turning it into a hook to dig out food. (Humans are the only other animals that use hooks!)

2. Hyenas Are Brilliant Teammates

To test whether hyenas were team players, researchers built a rig with two dangling ropes. When both ropes were yanked at the same time, a trap door opened, revealing a stash of food. Not only did hyenas work together to pull the ropes, they did it without training (monkeys, on the other hand, needed lots of help from humans to pass the test). Experienced hyenas even taught rookies in their pack how to do it.

3. Bees Are Efficient Architects

Honeycombs are the most efficient structures in nature. They use the least amount of wax for their size, and the hexagonal design makes the structure amazingly strong. It took humans over 2000 years of puzzling to figure that out!

4. Cows Celebrate a Job Well Done

Research shows that cows can feel emotions like fear and anxiety (and they even worry about the future). Cows also love to fix problems. A 2004 study found that when young cows solve problems, their heart rates increase. They even jump and kick when arriving at a solution—telltale signs that cows love having Eureka moments as much as we do.

5. Clark’s Nutcrackers Are Nature’s Traveling Salesmen

Pretend it’s errand time. You have to visit the supermarket, the pharmacy, and three other stores. All five are at separate locations. What’s the most efficient way to get to each one? Mathematicians call this “the traveling salesman problem,” and it’s harder than you think—it can even stump our best computers. However, it’s a snap for Clark’s Nutcrackers. Each year, these birds collect thousands of pine nuts and bury them in small stashes. When they return to pick up the goodies, not only do they remember where everything is, they can also calculate the fastest route to get them.

6. Pigs Rock at Video Games

When scientists built a snout-controlled game in which pigs had to move a shape across a computer screen and match it with a corresponding shape, they were naturals—they even performed better than some monkeys. Pigs are so smart that European regulators require pig farmers to provide “mentally-stimulating activity” for their swine (boredom makes pigs aggressive), and researchers designed a special video game to keep European pigs busy.

7. Parrots Are Feathered Linguists

Parrots aren’t capable of language, but they are good at imitating it. A parrot named Alex actually learned 100 English words, many of which he picked up without the motivation of food. Amazingly, Alex was able to make up words, too (he called apples “Banerries”—a blend of bananas and cherries). One time, when another parrot mispronounced a word, Alex yelled, “Talk clearly!”

8. Pigeons Make For Great Game Show Contestants

When researchers mapped the brain of pigeons, they discovered the areas for long-term memory and problem solving were wired just like a human’s. Pigeons are also better at game shows than us—studies show that pigeons play Monty Hall at a significantly higher success rate than humans.

20 Animals With Problem-solving Abilities

Animals have evolved to develop a wide range of problem-solving abilities, from finding food to escaping predators. These abilities can be complex and fascinating to observe, and can play a critical role in the survival and evolution of the involved species. In this article, we will take a look at 20 animals with impressive problem-solving abilities.

1. The Chimpanzee

Chimpanzees are one of the most intelligent animals on the planet, and have been observed using tools to solve problems for over 60 years. They have been observed using sticks to extract termites from mounds, using rocks to crack open nuts, and using leaves as cups to drink water. They also have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, by using cooperation and planning, such as working together to extract honey from beehives.

2. The Orangutan

Orangutans are known for their impressive problem-solving abilities, particularly when it comes to finding food. They have been observed using tools to extract insects from tree bark, using leaves as gloves to protect their hands from thorns, and using branches as levers to extract fruit from hard-to-reach places. They also have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, such as using trial and error to figure out how to open a certain fruit or nuts.

3. The Octopus

Octopuses are known for their intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They have been observed using tools, such as coconut shells, to hide from predators and to create shelters. They also have been observed using problem-solving skills to escape from enclosures and to obtain food. They have been observed using trial and error, such as trying different ways to open a container to get food.

4. The Crow

Crows are known for their intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They have been observed using tools, such as sticks and hooks, to obtain food. They also have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, such as using trial and error to figure out how to obtain food from a vending machine.

5. The Elephant

Elephants are known for their intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They have been observed using tools, such as branches and trunks, to obtain food. They also have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, such as using trial and error to figure out how to obtain food from a vending machine.

6. The Black Bear

Black bears are known for their intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, such as using trial and error to figure out how to obtain food from a vending machine, and using tools, such as sticks and rocks, to obtain food.

7. The Raccoon

Raccoons are known for their intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, such as using trial and error to figure out how to obtain food from a vending machine, and using tools, such as sticks and rocks, to obtain food.

8. The Gorilla

Gorillas are known for their intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, such as using trial and error to figure out how to obtain food from a vending machine, and using tools, such as sticks and rocks, to obtain food.

9. The Dolphin

Dolphins are known for their intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, such as using cooperation and teamwork to herd fish into a tighter group for hunting. They have also been observed using tools, such as using sea sponges to protect their snout while foraging for food on the ocean floor.

10. The Parrot

Parrots are known for their intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, such as using trial and error to figure out how to open a certain type of nut or fruit. They have also been observed using tools, such as using their beaks to hold objects in order to obtain food.

11. The Pig

Pigs are known for their intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, such as using trial and error to figure out how to open a certain type of container. They have also been observed using tools, such as using their snout to move objects in order to obtain food.

12. The Rat

Rats are known for their intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, such as using trial and error to figure out how to open a certain type of container or to find a way through a maze. They have also been observed using tools, such as using their teeth to gnaw through obstacles in order to obtain food.

13. The Dog

Dogs are known for their intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, such as using trial and error to figure out how to open a certain type of container or to find a way through a maze. They have also been observed using tools, such as using their mouths to hold objects in order to obtain food.

14. The Ant

Ants are known for their intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, such as using cooperation and teamwork to carry large objects back to their colony. They have also been observed using tools, such as using their mandibles to cut and manipulate objects in order to obtain food.

15. The Squirrel

Squirrels are known for their intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, such as using trial and error to figure out how to open a certain type of nut or container. They have also been observed using tools, such as using their front paws to hold objects to obtain food or to store food for later. They have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, such as using trial and error to figure out how to open a certain type of nut or container, and using tools, such as using their front paws to hold objects to obtain food or to store food for later.

16. The Kea

The Kea, a parrot native to New Zealand, is known for their intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, such as using trial and error to figure out how to open a certain type of container or to find a way through a maze. They have also been observed using tools, such as using their beaks to hold objects in order to obtain food.

17. The Arctic Fox

The Arctic fox is known for its intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, such as using trial and error to figure out how to catch lemmings under the snow or using tools, such as using their paws to dig through the snow to catch lemmings.

18. The Grizzly Bear

The Grizzly bear is known for its intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, such as using trial and error to figure out how to catch fish or using tools, such as using their paws to catch fish or using sticks to catch fish in shallow water.

19. The Arctic Tern

The Arctic tern is known for its intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, such as using trial and error to figure out how to catch fish or using tools, such as using their beaks to catch fish or using shells to catch fish.

20. The Beluga Whale

The Beluga whale is known for its intelligence and problem-solving abilities. They have been observed using problem-solving skills to obtain food, such as using trial and error to figure out how to catch fish or using tools, such as using their beaks to catch fish or using shells to catch fish. They have also been observed using problem-solving skills to escape from enclosures, such as using trial and error to figure out how to open a certain type of gate or door.

In conclusion, animals are incredibly diverse in their problem-solving abilities and strategies, from using tools to cooperation and teamwork. These abilities play a crucial role in their survival and evolution, and are endlessly fascinating to study and observe.

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13 Of The Most Intelligent Animals On Earth

We humans are a pretty unique and amazing bunch. Our ability to co-operate, to use complex language to create masterful works of art and to explore deep, philosophical dilemmas like existence and consciousness really do set up apart from our animal cousins.

It’s very easy to marvel at human achievements, but when you take a pause and dive into the fascinating universe of animals, you don’t have to look too hard to find examples of incredible intelligence. They are all over the place. There are some that create incredible works of art in the sand, those that have learned to use tools, that can learn and use sign language or mimic almost any sound they hear. Can the average human do that?

Let’s take a look at some of the most intelligent animals on Earth, and get an understanding of what we determine as intelligence and how we measure this in the animal kingdom.

13 Of The Most Intelligent Animals in the World

Exploring the intelligence of animals opens up a world where we realize that we are not alone in our cognitive adventures and emotional experiences. That can be quite a comforting thought!

I’m going to start this one off with taking a look at 13 of the most intelligent animals in the world and while these are in no particular order (because different species show intelligence in very different ways), I am starting off with three different primates. These animals are our closest relatives, and the most widely researched.

Chimpanzees , our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, are not just adorable but also incredibly intelligent! They share around 98.8% of their DNA with us humans, and have considerable cognitive abilities and emotional depth. They use tools, learn sign language, and even engage in tactical deception.

Chimps have a complex social structure, in which they have to navigate through various social scenarios, understand relationships, and manage interactions. This demands a high level of social intelligence. They have been observed displaying empathy, consolation, and even mourning, indicating emotional intelligence. They can even plan for future events, showcasing a level of foresight that is rare in the animal kingdom.

They are adept learners and have shown a capacity to imitate behaviours, learn sequences, and even understand symbolic language. There have been multiple individuals that have shown their ability to learn and communicate using sign language with their researchers. A shame that such research is not more widespread.

Orangutans, the gentle giants of the Borneo and Sumatran rainforests, are not just skilled tool users but also brilliant problem solvers! They can manipulate their environment creatively to solve problems and have a remarkable memory, remembering the locations of fruit trees and the timing of when they’ll bear fruit. They also have a great capacity to learn through observation and mimicry, both in the wild and in captivity.

Despite being semi-solitary, orangutans form strong mother-offspring bonds and have social interactions that require understanding social cues and emotions. In captivity, orangutans have shown the ability to understand and respond to the emotions and needs of others, indicating emotional intelligence.

In tests and observations they have shown the capacity to plan for the future, hiding tools for later use and to innovate and overcome difficulties with new behaviours – all examples of complex thought and intelligence.

Gorillas are another primate that exhibits profound emotional intelligence. They share many of the same intelligence traits and behaviours as the other primates mentioned above, but add to that with some very profound social and emotional behaviours.

They have been observed ‘teaching’ their young ones, through behaviour modification to encourage imitation or understanding. They provide comfort, assistance and encouragement to others in their group, as well as understanding and responding to the emotional states of others too. This shows a great capacity for empathy and emotional intelligence with these Gorillas . It also reveals displays of altruism which are further identified by their tendency to selflessly share food and help injured members of their group.

Gorillas can also communicate through a variety of vocalizations and gestures, and can learn sign language, expressing emotions and desires, and thoughts.

Dolphins , especially the Bottlenose dolphins , are by all accounts, aquatic geniuses. With a brain four to five times larger than expected for their body size, they exhibit self-awareness, recognize themselves in mirrors, and comprehend complex commands. Dolphins communicate using a sophisticated system of vocalizations and even have unique ‘signature whistles’ similar to how we use human names!

They form close social groups with family and allies, and co-operative behaviours around hunting and defending the group. They are one of the few animals other than primates that have learned to use makeshift tools to perform a specific function. In this case, they use a type of sponge to protect their rostrums when they are foraging for food on the sea floor. This illustrates great problem solving and innovation.

Dolphins can learn through mimicry not just of their own species, but others too, including humans. They show capacity to actively teach their young, to remember events from far in the past, and to plan for the future. That is quite a set of skills!

Elephants, the gentle giants, are not only recognized for their impressive memory but also for their deep emotional and social connections and matriarchal families. They are one of the few species that mourn their dead so deeply. They also display deep family and social connections with great capacity for empathy. It’s not all serious and emotional with Elephants though, they engage in lots of playful activities, both baby elephants and elders alike.

They are another animal that have learned to use tools, in this case they use sticks and branches to scratch aggravating itches, and swing the leaves of these branches to swat unwelcome insects. Elephants have shown the capacity to understand human gestures, and even differentiate between languages and human voices. They are long lived animals and their memory is incredible, able to remember places, people and interactions from many years in their past.

Parrots , particularly the African Grey Parrot, are celebrated for their vocal abilities and cognitive prowess. Their greatest trait, and perhaps the most widely researched, is their incredible ability to mimic sounds. They can do this better, arguably, than any other bird. While there are many others that can mimic through simple repetition, the Parrots mimicry extends beyond this. Not only can they mimic human voices, but they also show the potential to understand and use human language contextually, and that is incredible amongst it’s avian peers.

Parrots also show the ability to solve complex problems. African Grey Parrots for example, can associate words with meanings, understand numerical concepts, and even express emotions through vocalizations! They are one of the few species of bird that have learned to use tools, particularly for the use of getting to hard-to-reach food. These birds show the capacity to understand causality and probability, especially when given the challenge of completing complex puzzles.

Corvids – Ravens & Crows

Crows and ravens , the dark-feathered intellectuals, are similar to parrots in that they exhibit remarkable problem-solving skills and the ability to use tools. They have been observed making hooks out of small pieces of wood or metal, for the purpose of getting to food. They have also been observed placing nuts in the road and waiting for traffic to run over them to crack the shell, then swooping down to get their food. This shows that they understand to some extent, cause and effect.

These birds which are both of the genus ‘ Corvus ‘ can recognize themselves in mirrors, and even plan for the future – a trait once thought to be uniquely reserved for primates!

Pigs, with their curious snouts and intelligent eyes, are both smart and emotionally rich. Research suggests they have a cognitive ability comparable to primates and the most intelligent dogs. They can manipulate objects to achieve a function or goal, they are one of the few animals that understand mirrors and are one of the few animals that have shown an ability to even play video games!

This might sound like a budget sci-fi film, but it’s true. Researchers from Purdue University in the USA ran experiments where pigs were able to move a cursor on a screen by interacting with a joystick with the aim of achieving a reward.

Pigs also have complex social structures, can learn from observation, and exhibit a range of emotions and preferences. They have shown a capacity for empathy and grief, and have shown behaviours that suggest an awareness of their own body and the impact of their actions.

Octopuses, the eight-armed wonders of the ocean, are masters of problem-solving and camouflage. They might look like little aliens, but they show a remarkable range of intelligent behaviours and emotional capacity. They are very inquisitive, though perhaps shy at first, and in captivity show an uncanny ability to recognize different humans. Some species demonstrate the ability to navigate competently through mazes and believe it or not, even unscrew the lids from jars.

These animals have a decentralized nervous system and can perform different tasks independently with each of their eight arms. This is a unique form of intelligence from any of the other species in this list. Octopus have an incredible ability to mimic the appearance of their surroundings , changing colour and blending into their rocky or coral backgrounds. Some can even mimic the appearance of other marine animals!

Rats, often underappreciated, are both clever and resourceful. They have been researched extensively, and the subject of many intelligence tests and experiments. In studies, they have been shown to be able to find shortcuts and loopholes in experiments, and have a great capacity to learn from their environment. Their spatial memory and cognitive mapping are exceptional.

They live in structured social groups and take part in social activities such as play and mutual grooming. Rats, especially young rats , are even known to play hide and seek – though they probably have a different name for it! In some observations, rats also demonstrate a capacity for metacognition, which is the ability to think about their own thinking. They can make decisions based on the certainty of their knowledge, how incredible is that!

Pigeons are not quite as smart as Parrots or Corvids, but they are up there, and have some pretty unique skills and intelligence traits. First and foremost are their incredible homing and navigation abilities which are believed to come from superior spatial memory and their capacity to remember landmarks in relation to location.

So trusted is a Pigeon’s navigation that they have been used across time by humans to deliver messages over long distances, particularly during times of war. They were even used during the World Wars for this exact purpose. While often persecuted, these birds have been a great aid to humans in our times of need.

In other examples of intelligence, Pigeons have shown a capacity to learn from and adapt to their environment. In studies they show a level of self awareness, able to recognise themselves in video footage. They perform well in reward challenges and can be trained to perform sequences of actions. Other observations reveal their capacity to differentiate between different visual stimuli, and even categorize objects, showcasing a level of abstraction in thinking. Pretty smart for an animal some of us consider to be vermin.

No intelligent animals list would be complete without mentioning mans best friend. While all dogs are smart, some are smarter than others and the Border Collie is one of the smartest around, always scoring high in tests of intelligence.

With their alert eyes and boundless energy, they are not only agile herders but also incredibly smart in many other ways. They can understand numerous words, commands, and gestures, differentiate between objects, and even exhibit problem-solving skills, making them one of the smartest dog breeds . They have great emotional intelligence and have a clear understanding of hierarchies. Their memories are also very deep and rooted into their personalities.

How Do We Research Animal Intelligence?

Exploring the depths of animal intelligence involves a blend of behavioural observations, experimental setups, and sometimes, forming unexpected friendships with our animal subjects. Scientists employ various tests (more on this later), to observe and gain insight from the cognitive world of animals. From navigating through mazes to understanding reflections in mirrors, animals are put through a series of challenges to identify the level of their intellect and emotional capacities.

What Qualifies For Intelligence?

Intelligence in the animal kingdom is identified across a blend of problem-solving, emotional understanding, social interactions, learning abilities, memory, and adaptability. It’s a measure of how animals interact with their environment, their peers, and other species, navigating through the challenges of survival and social living.

Determining How Smart Different Animals Are

Determining the intelligence of different animals is a journey that navigates through various aspects of cognitive and emotional capacities. Scientists and researchers utilize a multifaceted approach that tests subjects in the following ways:

• Problem-Solving Abilities : How well can an animal navigate through challenges and use innovative solutions?
• Learning and Adaptation : How quickly and efficiently can an animal learn new skills and adapt to changes in its environment?
• Memory : How well can an animal recall information and experiences?
• Social Intelligence : How does an animal interact, communicate, and establish relationships within its social structure?
• Emotional Intelligence : Can the animal understand and respond to emotional cues, both of its own species and others?
• Use of Tools : Can the animal figure out how to use tools to complete tasks and navigate through challenges?
• Self-awareness: Can the animal recognize itself and have a sense of its own body?

Through a combination of observational studies, experimental setups, and longitudinal research, scientists explore these facets to gauge the intelligence of various animals.

The Different Intelligence Tests Used To Determine Animal Intelligence

So we now know what it is that scientists are measuring to determine intelligence in animals, but what tests do they use? Here are some examples for the different areas of observation:

• Problem-Solving Tests

Puzzle Boxes : Animals are presented with boxes that contain food but are locked or obstructed in some way. Their ability to unlock or access the food is observed.

• Learning and Memory Tests

Maze Navigation : Animals are placed in mazes and their ability to find their way out, and remember the path in subsequent trials is tested.

Discrimination Tasks : Animals are trained to differentiate between different stimuli and are tested on their recall and application of learned knowledge.

• Social and Emotional Intelligence Tests

Mirror Test : Animals are exposed to mirrors to see if they can recognize themselves, indicating self-awareness.

Empathy Tests : Observing behaviours that indicate understanding and responding to the emotional states of conspecifics.

• Communication and Language Tests

Symbol Recognition : Animals are trained to associate symbols with objects or actions and are tested on their ability to understand and use these symbols.

Vocal Mimicry : For species that are capable, their ability to mimic and understand vocal sounds is explored.

• Tool Use and Manipulation Tests

Tool Utilization : Observing if and how animals use tools to achieve goals, such as obtaining food or providing protection.

Object Manipulation: Testing how animals interact with various objects and if they can use them innovatively to solve problems.

• Creativity and Innovation Tests

Novel Object Interaction : Introducing animals to new objects and observing their interactions and innovative uses.

Creative Problem Solving : Presenting animals with challenges that require creative thinking and observing their approaches.

• Cooperation and Altruism Tests – Observation

Cooperative Tasks: Observing if animals can work together to achieve a common goal that benefits all participants. Those that have complex social structures often do well here.

Altruistic Behaviors: Observing instances where animals help or provide for others without immediate personal gain. Some primates show a great capacity for altruism for example.

Some animals will perform better in one test than they do in the other, depending not only on the species but on the individual too.

5 Fun Intelligent Animals Facts For Kids

• Elephants can paint with their trunks and create beautiful artworks!
• Rats love to play and can learn to play a fun game of hide and seek with humans!
• Octopuses have three hearts, but did you know two of them actually stop beating when they swim?
• Pigs have such a great sense of direction that they can find their way home from huge distances!
• Pigeons were used as mail carriers and could deliver messages across long distances, even during wars!

All Subjects

4.5 Animal intelligence and problem-solving

9 min read • august 20, 2024

Animals possess diverse cognitive abilities, from instinctive behaviors to complex problem-solving. Understanding these skills helps researchers study animal adaptations and behavior. Intelligence varies across species, with some showing advanced abilities like self-awareness and tool use .

Measuring animal intelligence involves cognitive tests and comparisons across species. Researchers use various approaches to assess memory, learning, and reasoning. However, comparing intelligence between species presents challenges due to differences in sensory abilities and ecological contexts.

Types of animal intelligence

• Animal intelligence encompasses a wide range of cognitive abilities and problem-solving skills that vary across different species
• Understanding the types of intelligence in animals helps researchers better study their behavior and adaptations to their environment

Instinctive vs learned behaviors

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• Instinctive behaviors are innate, genetically predetermined actions that animals perform without prior experience or learning (migration in birds, web-spinning in spiders)
• Learned behaviors are acquired through experience, observation, or teaching from others and can be modified over time
• Many behaviors involve a combination of instinctive and learned components (hunting skills in predators)

Species-specific vs general intelligence

• Species-specific intelligence refers to cognitive abilities that are unique or highly developed in certain species due to their ecological niche or evolutionary history (echolocation in bats, spatial memory in food-caching birds)
• General intelligence involves problem-solving skills and learning abilities that are applicable across various contexts and can be compared between species
• Debates exist over whether general intelligence is a valid concept in animals or if intelligence should be considered species-specific

Cognitive abilities of different taxa

• Mammals, particularly primates, cetaceans, and elephants, exhibit advanced cognitive abilities such as self-awareness, social cognition, and tool use
• Birds, especially corvids (crows, ravens) and parrots, demonstrate complex problem-solving, social learning, and communication skills
• Some invertebrates, such as octopuses and honey bees, show remarkable intelligence in terms of learning, memory, and flexibility in behavior
• Comparing cognitive abilities across taxa requires careful consideration of ecological and evolutionary factors that shape intelligence

Measuring animal intelligence

• Assessing intelligence in animals is challenging due to the difficulty in defining and quantifying cognitive abilities across diverse species
• Researchers use various approaches, including behavioral observations, experimental tests, and neurological studies, to measure different aspects of animal intelligence

Defining intelligence in animals

• Intelligence in animals is often defined as the ability to acquire, process, and apply information to solve problems and adapt to new situations
• Definitions of intelligence may vary depending on the species and the specific cognitive abilities being studied (spatial memory, social cognition, tool use)
• Some researchers argue for a broader definition of intelligence that encompasses emotional and social intelligence in addition to cognitive problem-solving

Cognitive tests for animals

• Cognitive tests are designed to assess specific aspects of animal intelligence, such as memory, learning, reasoning, and problem-solving
• Maze navigation tests for spatial memory
• Object permanence tests for understanding object persistence
• Mirror self-recognition tests for self-awareness
• Social learning tests for observational learning and imitation
• Tests must be carefully designed to account for species-specific sensory abilities, motivations, and ecological relevance

Comparing intelligence across species

• Comparing intelligence across species is challenging due to differences in sensory abilities, motor skills, and ecological contexts
• Researchers often use standardized tests or tasks that can be adapted for different species to allow for cross-species comparisons
• Relative brain size (encephalization quotient) is sometimes used as a proxy for intelligence, but it has limitations and does not always correlate with cognitive abilities
• Comparative studies must consider the evolutionary history and ecological pressures that shape intelligence in different species

Problem-solving strategies

• Animals employ various strategies to solve problems they encounter in their environment, ranging from simple trial and error learning to more complex cognitive processes
• Understanding the problem-solving strategies used by different species provides insights into their cognitive abilities and adaptations

Trial and error learning

• Trial and error learning involves repeatedly attempting different actions until a solution is found, without necessarily understanding the underlying principles
• This strategy is common in many animals, particularly when facing novel problems or situations
• Examples include animals learning to navigate mazes or figuring out how to access hidden food rewards

Insight and aha moments

• Insight problem-solving involves suddenly arriving at a solution through a mental reorganization or restructuring of the problem
• Also known as "aha moments," insight is often associated with a sudden change in behavior or approach to a problem
• Chimpanzees stacking boxes to reach a suspended fruit
• New Caledonian crows bending wire into hooks to retrieve food
• Insight is considered a higher-level cognitive process and is more rarely observed in animals compared to trial and error learning

Social learning and imitation

• Social learning involves acquiring new behaviors or skills through observing or interacting with others
• Imitation, a form of social learning, involves copying the specific actions or strategies of another individual
• Social learning allows animals to acquire adaptive behaviors more efficiently than through individual trial and error
• Chimpanzees learning to use tools by observing others
• Meerkats teaching their young how to handle dangerous prey
• Birds learning foraging techniques from their parents

Tool use for problem-solving

• Tool use involves the manipulation of objects in the environment to achieve a goal or solve a problem
• Tool use is considered a hallmark of intelligence and is observed in various species, including primates, birds, and some invertebrates
• Chimpanzees using sticks to fish for termites
• Sea otters using rocks to crack open shellfish
• Elephants using branches to swat flies or scratch themselves
• Tool use requires cognitive abilities such as planning, flexibility, and an understanding of cause-and-effect relationships

Factors affecting problem-solving ability

• Various factors influence an animal's problem-solving ability, including environmental, social, and biological factors
• Understanding these factors helps researchers better understand the evolution and development of intelligence in different species

Role of environment and ecology

• An animal's environment and ecological niche shape the types of problems they encounter and the adaptive value of problem-solving abilities
• Species living in complex, variable environments may face greater selective pressures for cognitive abilities compared to those in stable, predictable environments
• Food-caching birds (nutcrackers) have enhanced spatial memory for retrieving hidden food stores
• Generalist species (raccoons) tend to be more flexible problem-solvers than specialists

Influence of social structure

• Social structure and group dynamics can influence the development and expression of problem-solving abilities in animals
• In social species, individuals may benefit from social learning and cooperation in solving problems
• Chimpanzees in larger, more complex social groups tend to exhibit more diverse and frequent tool use
• Social insects (ants, bees) demonstrate collective problem-solving through division of labor and communication

Impact of brain size and structure

• Brain size and structure are often associated with cognitive abilities and problem-solving capacity in animals
• Relative brain size (encephalization quotient) is positively correlated with cognitive abilities in many species
• Specific brain regions, such as the neocortex in mammals and the nidopallium in birds, are involved in higher-order cognitive functions and problem-solving
• However, brain size alone does not always predict cognitive abilities, and other factors such as neural connectivity and brain organization also play important roles

Evolutionary pressures on intelligence

• Intelligence and problem-solving abilities evolve in response to specific evolutionary pressures and adaptive challenges faced by a species
• Complexity and variability of the environment
• Social complexity and competition
• Foraging challenges and dietary specialization
• Predation pressure and the need for escape strategies
• Understanding the evolutionary history and selective pressures faced by a species can provide insights into the development and adaptive value of their cognitive abilities

Examples of intelligent problem-solving

• Numerous examples of intelligent problem-solving have been observed across various animal species, showcasing their cognitive abilities and adaptations
• These examples provide valuable insights into the diversity and complexity of animal intelligence

Puzzle-solving in primates

• Primates, particularly great apes, are known for their advanced problem-solving skills and ability to solve complex puzzles
• Chimpanzees solving multi-step puzzles to obtain food rewards
• Gorillas using tools and sequential processing to solve a maze task
• Orangutans demonstrating flexible problem-solving in a tool-use task

Navigation and foraging in birds

• Birds exhibit remarkable problem-solving abilities in navigation and foraging, often relying on spatial memory and learning
• Homing pigeons using cognitive maps to navigate over long distances
• New Caledonian crows solving multi-step tool-use problems to access food
• Western scrub jays employing flexible caching strategies to protect their food from theft

Cooperation and coordination in social animals

• Social animals often display intelligent problem-solving through cooperation and coordination with group members
• Chimpanzees collaborating to hunt monkeys or solve a cooperative task
• Elephants working together to defend against predators or assist injured individuals
• Dolphins coordinating hunting strategies and social behaviors

Unique problem-solving in cephalopods

• Cephalopods, particularly octopuses, demonstrate remarkable problem-solving abilities and behavioral flexibility
• Octopuses solving puzzle boxes and navigating mazes
• Cuttlefish using dynamic camouflage and deceptive signaling to hunt or avoid predators
• Squids exhibiting social learning and communication in group hunting

Limitations and criticisms

• The study of animal intelligence and problem-solving is not without limitations and criticisms, which are important to consider when interpreting research findings
• Addressing these limitations and criticisms helps to improve the rigor and validity of animal cognition research

Anthropomorphism in interpreting behavior

• Anthropomorphism involves attributing human-like mental states, emotions, or intentions to animals based on their behavior
• While it is important to recognize the cognitive abilities of animals, researchers must be cautious not to over-interpret or project human-like qualities onto animal behavior
• Objective, species-specific criteria should be used to assess animal intelligence and problem-solving

Challenges in comparing across species

• Comparing cognitive abilities across species is challenging due to differences in sensory abilities, motor skills, and ecological contexts
• What may be considered intelligent problem-solving in one species may not be relevant or applicable to another
• Researchers must carefully design tests and consider species-specific factors when making cross-species comparisons

Distinguishing learning from intelligence

• Learning and intelligence are related but distinct concepts, and it can be challenging to differentiate between them in animal behavior
• Learning involves acquiring new behaviors or associations through experience, while intelligence involves the ability to apply learned information flexibly to solve novel problems
• Researchers must use carefully designed tests and control for learning effects to assess intelligence in animals

Ethical considerations in animal cognition research

• Animal cognition research raises ethical concerns regarding the welfare and treatment of animals in experimental settings
• Researchers must adhere to ethical guidelines and minimize distress or harm to animals during testing
• Non-invasive methods and naturalistic observations should be used whenever possible, and the benefits of the research should be weighed against the potential costs to animal welfare

Implications and applications

• The study of animal intelligence and problem-solving has important implications and applications for various fields, including evolutionary biology, animal welfare, artificial intelligence, and conservation
• Understanding animal intelligence can provide valuable insights and inform practices in these areas

Insights into human intelligence evolution

• Studying the cognitive abilities of animals, particularly our closest living relatives (primates), can provide insights into the evolution of human intelligence
• Comparative studies can help identify the selective pressures and evolutionary pathways that led to the development of advanced cognitive abilities in humans
• Animal research can also inform our understanding of the biological bases and neural mechanisms underlying human intelligence

Improving animal welfare and enrichment

• Understanding animal intelligence and problem-solving can inform the design of more effective and species-appropriate enrichment strategies in captive settings (zoos, laboratories)
• Providing opportunities for problem-solving and cognitive challenges can improve animal welfare by reducing boredom and promoting natural behaviors
• Knowledge of species-specific cognitive abilities can guide the development of housing and husbandry practices that meet the mental and behavioral needs of animals

Designing better AI and robotics systems

• Studying animal intelligence can inspire the design of more efficient and adaptable artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics systems
• Animal problem-solving strategies, such as swarm intelligence in social insects or navigation in birds, can be applied to optimize AI algorithms and robot control systems
• Insights from animal cognition can also inform the development of biologically-inspired AI architectures and learning algorithms

Conservation and management of intelligent species

• Recognizing the cognitive abilities and problem-solving capacities of animals can inform conservation and management strategies for intelligent species
• Understanding the cognitive needs and behavioral flexibility of species can guide the design of protected areas, corridors, and conservation interventions
• Considering animal intelligence can also help predict and mitigate human-wildlife conflicts, such as crop-raiding or urban wildlife management
• Educating the public about animal intelligence can promote empathy and support for conservation efforts

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What Puzzle-Solving Crows Can Teach Us About Animal Intelligence

Grade level, life science, stem practices, asking questions and defining problems , analyzing and interpreting data, activity type:, animal behavior , animal adaptations , engineering and design challenge.

Did that crow just figure out how to get food out of that tube? Yeah, it did. What do you notice about what it did before getting the food? Why did it select specific blocks? Based on what you observed, would you call this crow intelligent? Animal behavior researchers use observations of animals in the wild and puzzles like the one above to learn more about the problem-solving skills of a particular species.

In Aesop’s Fable, The Crow and the Pitcher , a thirsty crow uses stones to gain access to water in a pitcher—as they add more stones, the water level rises, and the crow is able to drink. While conducting her PhD study at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, Sarah Jelbert recreated The Crow and the Pitcher fable, showing that New Caledonian crows had the cognitive ability to solve multi-step problems. In this test, you might notice that the crow only uses particular objects. Jelbert’s study, which included six tests, seemed to show that these crows after being given objects with different weights were able to select objects that had a greater effect on the water level!

This resource was created as part of the Science Friday Educator Collaborative . If you are implementing this in the classroom, please check out the Educator’s Guide and folder of supplementals .

There are approximately 40 different species of corvids—crows and ravens—in the world, a group including even Blue Jays. Studies have shown that some species of crows can recognize human faces, use tools, play games, and even hold funerals . New Caledonian and Hawaiian crows have even been observed to use tools! Crows have proven themselves to be excellent problem-solvers. Some say their intelligence can be comparable to that of a seven-year-old child .

In this activity, you will observe the behavior of an animal and use those observations to design a puzzle that can test its ability to solve a problem. Along the way, we will explore structures of different animals, animal behavior, the role of puzzle boxes in animal behavior research, and think about how problem-solving abilities might help different animals survive and thrive.

Animal Behaviors

No question about it, humans are fascinated by other animals. People can easily spend hours watching animals at zoos and wildlife parks or even people watching (we are animals too). Some of us can spend hours on the internet watching cat videos . Humans are not the only ones— other animals are fascinated with each other, too. Why is it that we are so drawn to other animals? It might be because we are looking at how similar and different they are from us. We wonder, do they think and feel like we do?

When you watch an insect moving around or pet playing, you are observing animal behavior , how an animal acts in response to their environment (living and nonliving). While these behaviors may seem random (seriously, why do cats chase lasers?), they all serve a purpose to help that animal and their young survive and thrive.  You can read about more basics of animal behavior in this resource from Khan Academy .

Let’s take a minute to observe the behavior of crows to get a sense of their behaviors and how complex and intelligent these creatures are.

Observe Wild Crows

As you watch the videos of wild crows, write down your observations and wonderings on your Crow Behavior Worksheet . Be sure you look at both what they do and how they do it. The first video is embedded below. While watching you will notice researchers, but focus on the parts with crows without humans.

Watch the second video,  Crows in Nature . Note additional observations on your Crow Behavior Worksheet .

Use your observations of these wild crows to answer the questions below. You can record your answers on your Crow Behavior Worksheet .

• What behaviors did you observe? (What is the crow doing?)
• What did you notice about the bodies of the crows? What structures did you see?
• How did the crows use their bodies? What movements did you notice?
• Why do you think they did that behavior? How does it help them survive?
• Based on what you saw the crows doing in the video, what else do you think they can do?

Observe Learned Behavior In Crows

Humans can influence or alter the behavior of some animals. The examples that follow describe two projects where humans developed systems that train crows to accomplish a specific task. Write down your observations of each system on your Crow B ehavior Worksheet .

Example One: In 2018, a Dutch startup called CROWded Cities invented the ‘Crowbar’, a device that releases a treat every time a crow deposits a cigarette butt into it. Using a reward system, they trained some crows to clean up cigarette butt litter. Check out the design in the image below and watch this video about the Crowbar device .

Example Two: In a similar idea, the French theme park Puy du Fou trained rooks , a species in the crow family primarily found in Europe and Asia, to pick up litter left behind by park guests in exchange for food. These rooks were not wild but raised and trained. Check out the video of the rook work at Puy du Fou .

Based on your observations of these two systems think about the questions below, which you can also find on your Crow Behavior Worksheet :

• How did the crows use their bodies to accomplish these tasks?
• Are humans using innate or learned behavior in crows when they design these systems? A combination?
• What could you do to figure out if your hypothesis is true?
• Based on what the crows learned in these two instances (Crowbar and Puy du Fou), what else do you think they can do?

Activity 1: Animal Observations

Like humans, other animals use a wide variety of behaviors to solve problems. A single animal can perform many different behaviors, sometimes at the same time as one another!

One of the tools that scientists use to keep track of animal behavior is an ethogram , a chart where they tally how often they see an animal performing particular behaviors. For example, if you were studying grooming behavior, you may observe how many times an animal grooms another animal in an allotted time period.

You are going to use a similar system. You will be observing and recording a variety of animal behaviors using live wildlife webcams. The more time you spend making observations, the better! You will choose three behaviors and then observe for a period of ten minutes. The type of animal behavior observations you make will be dependent on the animals themselves, you can find a general reference on page three of the Animal Observation Chart .

NOTE: It may take more than one observation session for your animal to cooperate (for example, if they are sleeping during your entire observation period!)

• Choose an animal to observe. You may have to check multiple webcam feeds before making your decision. Our favorite webcams are linked in the slide above.
• Write its common name and species (if known) on your Animal Observation Chart .
• Brainstorm the types of behaviors you expect to see, and discuss with a partner if you able. Think about what behaviors might be related to staying healthy, caring for young, staying safe, and practicing for the future. There is a list on page three of your chart for reference.
• Choose three behaviors and write them at the top of each of the three columns on your Animal Observation Chart .
• Record the number of times you observe each behavior using tally marks in each time block. (See examples below.)

After your webcam observations, head outside! By observing animals in their natural habitat, you may see different behaviors than those seen in captive animals. There is a lot we can learn from the animals in our neighborhoods and even in our own backyards. Be sure to follow these guidelines for maintaining space for nature to thrive.

"Crows, A Bird That’s Not Bird-Brained"

Species in the crow family—Corvidae—are considered highly intelligent animals. What are the behaviors of crows that led to this conclusion?

Kaeli Swift is a corvid researcher at the University of Washington, and her work has shown that American crows play games, hold funerals, and even recognize human faces. We are going to listen to some selections from her Science Friday interview and excerpts from an AMA she did with Science Friday on Reddit.

While listening to and reading, write down any interesting facts you learned or new questions you have about the behavior of birds in the crow family.

If you can, do this activity with other people using sticky notes so that you can collect more ideas.

• Kaeli Swift also participated in an AMA (Ask Me Anything) discussion on Reddit.com with Science Friday staff on corvids. Read some of her responses to questions in Questions About Crows? We’ve Got You Covered .

Click here for transcripts for the audio clips .

Now, group your sticky notes into themes. If you are working with other people, look at the ideas they generated. Did they find the same things interesting? Did they ask similar questions to yours? Share an idea that they didn’t have on their list.

Intelligence can be defined in many ways. You might have noticed that when Swift says crows are “intelligent,” she is referring specifically to the ability to solve certain problems with a variety of approaches. This comes from observing their behavior in the wild and in controlled settings. By designing puzzles for crows to solve, researchers can pinpoint and test the problem-solving abilities of these amazing animals.

Questions About Crows? We’ve Got You Covered

Activity 2: the games people play.

So, who could solve a puzzle faster, you or a crow? Well, that all depends on the puzzle. We use problem-solving skills constantly—to cross the street, eat a meal, or when having fun. Let’s try some puzzles designed specifically for humans. Logic puzzles are designed to be fun, but some of the puzzles will be more difficult than others to solve.

Spend a maximum of five minutes on each puzzle in the slides below. You can always go back later if you need more time.

After your puzzle time, answer the following questions on your Games People Play Sheet :

• What skills or abilities were required for each puzzle?
• How might those skills or abilities help us survive?
• Why would an animal (other than a human) have a hard time solving these puzzles?
• Some animals appear to play games. What animals have you observed playing? What were they doing? How could this behavior benefit the animal?
• Could you directly compare a human and another animal solving the same puzzle? How would you “score” them on the same puzzle?

Animals use their instincts and even learn new behaviors while engaging in play. Animal observations can tell you a lot, but often researchers use puzzles to help them understand the behaviors and instincts of the animals they are studying. Researchers may have animals work through a series of problems to gain access to food or to train them for other tasks, for example, search and rescue dogs.

When designing a puzzle, researchers consider both the physical and cognitive limitations of the organism they are researching. Thinking back to the videos and observations you made of corvids and other animals, how could their anatomy be compared to human anatomy? Can direct comparisons be made between similar anatomical features, such as wings and arms? How do humans and other animals use similar anatomical features in different and/or similar ways?

Thinking about our crow observations…

• What do you think it would look like if a crow were too frustrated to continue a puzzle?
• What types of incentives would encourage them to try a puzzle?
• What senses, skills, or body parts did you rely on to solve these puzzles? Does a crow have the same body parts?
• How would you need to modify one of the puzzles you tried to be relevant and achievable by a crow?

Activity 3: Design A Challenge

You already challenged yourself by attempting and a series of logic puzzles designed for humans; now, you will design a challenge (or puzzle) for an animal you’ve observed.

Engineering Design Process

To complete your animal challenge, you will engage in the engineering design process —a series of activities that engineers, researchers, designers, and many others use to solve a problem. Your problem: design a challenge for an animal that will help you learn more about its problem-solving abilities. Design a challenge for them to solve to gain access to a food treat. Here’s the process:

Your animal challenge design must do the following:

• Focus on one animal.
• Identify particular behaviors that inspired the design.
• Test an animal’s ability to reason/think/problem-solve/have fun.

Choose An Animal

What animal do you want to create your challenge for? Consider using one of the animals you observed during this activity, but feel free to shift to another animal you’ve observed, maybe a local animal? Crows? Pigeons? Squirrels? Coyote?

Once you’ve selected, write down your choice on your Animal Challenge Design Workbook .

Research Your Animal

Whether you are looking at an animal you observed already or have selected a new one, we still need more information before we can design our puzzles. Engineers gather research to help them create their solutions to problems, and in your case, you need information that will help you design a challenge for an animal that will help you learn more about its problem-solving abilities. Remember that researchers consider both the physical and cognitive limitations of the organism they are researching.

As you gather research, add them to the ‘Research’ section of your Animal Challenge Design Workbook .

Guiding Questions

• What natural behaviors are observed in the animal you chose? (You can use your observation notes here, but also research what other scientists have observed in your animal.)
• Not all animals have hands, so your challenge must be solvable using your animal’s available structures. What is the body of your organisms like? How does it move? Grab objects?
• Describe the niche of your animal. Where does it live? How does it interact with the living and non-living things in its surroundings? What food do they love to eat?
• Do they display problem-solving skills? If so, describe how they go about solving a problem.

Another key aspect of research is looking into challenge designs of other researchers for inspiration. Watch the following videos of animals solving challenges to help inspire your own design.

For each video, answer the following questions in your Animal Challenge Design Workbook :

• What is the animal doing?
• Are the behaviors you saw play behaviors?
• What function do the behaviors serve?
• Could this behavior help the animal survive? Why or why not?

Brainstorm & Sketch Your Design

Before you dive into drawing and creating, we should start by identifying your criteria —define what would make your puzzle box successful—and your constraints —limitations you must consider. Be sure to think about the physical and cognitive abilities of your organism when outlining your criteria and constraints in your Animal Challenge Design Workbook .

Use your research on your animal, defined criteria and constraints, and your available materials to generate possible designs for challenges.

• What ability did you want to test?
• What are some initial ideas for features of your challenge? Give yourself time to write down all the ideas you have, then read your list and chose 1-2 you want to try.
• Which of the animal’s behaviors do you think might help them solve the challenge?
• Can your animal grip something? If not, be sure to think about how the puzzle will be held steady so that it does not move around or tip over.
• Do you need to provide tools (such as sticks or stones) for the animal to use to solve the challenge? Will they be able to use those tools?

Think about and gather available materials. What materials could you use to complete your design? Are there materials that you can reuse/upcycle in your design? These are prototypes, so our goal is not a perfect and durable animal challenge, but rather something that allows us to test whether your design would work for the organism you selected.

Remember, if you don’t have access to materials you can always create a schematic —a drawing with detailed materials and dimensions that someone could use to create your design—or use a free design program like Tinkercad to create your design.

• What materials will work best in your design?
• Create a labeled design sketch that includes information about potential materials, size, and moving parts of the challenge.

Activity 4: Create Your Animal Challenge Prototype And Test It Out

Create A Working Prototype

Now it’s time to get building. Working alone or with others, create a working prototype of your animal challenge for testing (by another human) with your criteria and animal research in mind. Your prototype does not have to be perfect; that’s part of the process. Prototypes are meant to help us decide if our design can fulfill the criteria. You can develop better and better prototypes over time, and level up the materials you use.

Note: If you are working with potentially dangerous materials (e.g., wood, nails, cutting tools) remember to have an adult present to help you and to wear protective gear (e.g., safety glasses, gloves) when needed.

While you are building your prototype, be sure to keep track of challenges and alterations in your Animal Challenge Design Workbook .

If working in a group, it is important that everyone in the group works on the build. Before beginning, decide what role each team member will play and what portion they will help build. Remember that during the building process, we should help and support each other. Everyone shares responsibility for safety. Behave in a way that protects everyone’s safety and your own.

Preparing For Testing

Congratulations, you have finished building a prototype of your animal challenge! You will not be testing your prototypes on actual animals, for your safety and theirs. Instead, you will be testing them on another person!

Before another person tests your puzzle, you need to give them some information. You can add this to your Animal Challenge Design Workbook .

• Write a short statement in which you say what animal the puzzle was designed for and what you were intending to test. For example, in the photos above, the box was designed to test a corvid bird’s ability to [insert a problem-solving behavior] in order to open the box to retrieve a food treat inside.
• Provide a picture of key structures of your chosen animal, pointing out how the tester might need to modify how they engage with the puzzle.
• Describe any special considerations you had to make while designing the box. The test pictured above was designed to become more difficult each time the corvid gained access to the treat.

Testing Designs

• Give your tester time to read your short statement about the challenge and your organism.
• Tell them they will have five minutes to engage with the challenge.
• Describe any adaptations or tools you will have them use to engage with the puzzle. For example, you might provide pliers or tweezers to help them mimic a beak, or a hand rake to mimic long claws.
• Tell them that they cannot use their hands except to hold any tools you are using to mimic the structures of the animal you are imitating.
• Answer any questions they might have about engaging with the puzzle.
• As someone tries to solve your challenge, keep notes about their successes and failures in the ‘Test And Improve’ section of your Animal Challenge Design Workbook .
• Conduct a brief debrief about their experience solving your challenge. You can use some of the reflection questions below.

Reflection Questions

• Did the puzzle move when they tried to solve it?
• Tester: Would the intended animal be able to detect the treat inside to motivate it to do the puzzle?
• Tester: Was it too easy to be a good measure of intelligence?
• Tester: What did you have to figure out in order to solve the puzzle?
• Tester: What types of logical reasoning would an animal need in order to solve it?

How Might Problem-Solving Abilities Help An Animal Survive?

Use what you have learned about animals and their problem-solving abilities to answer one of the following questions:

• Crows are very intelligent animals. Write about different ways crows demonstrate their intelligence.
• Could we use the ability of animals to learn, and in some cases solve problems, to help conserve them? For example, sometimes animals face new, unfamiliar predators and they have no instinctual defenses. How might learning be important to these animals?

Want to explore more about corvids or animal cognition? Check out some of these resources!

• Corvid Cognition
• Corvid Research Blog
• Everything Worth Knowing About Animal Intelligence

Are We Smart Enough to Understand How Smart Animals Are?

Next generation science standards.

This resource works toward the following performance expectations:

• 4-LS1-1 : Construct an argument   that plants and animals have   internal and external structures that function to support   survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction.
• 3-LS4-3 : Construct an argument with evidence that   in a particular habitat some organisms   can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
• 3-5-ETS1-1 : Define a simple design problem   reflecting a need or a want   that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.
• 3-5-ETS1-2 : Generate and compare multiple   possible solutions   to a problem based on how well   each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
• 3-5-ETS1-3 : Plan and carry out fair tests in which variables are controlled   and failure points are considered to identify aspects of a model or prototype that can be improved.

Credits: Written by Hillary Gutierrez Edits by Shirley Campbell and Xochitl Garcia Review by: Laura Diaz, Jessica Metz, Chenille Williams, Jennifer Powers, Katie Brown, Stacey George, Marta Toran, and Michael Kosko Digital Production by Xochitl Garcia

Meet the Writer

About Hillary Gutierrez

Hillary Gutierrez teaches elementary science in Dixon, Calif., where she loves getting messy in the classroom. She believes hands-on learning activities are key to the educational experience. Hillary has a bachelor’s in anthropology from the University of California, Davis, a master’s in STEAM Education from the University of San Diego, and various teaching certificates in geology and special education.

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A new beak evolution lab.

This evolution simulation goes further by modeling reproductive success while giving young engineers an opportunity to flex their skills.

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All you need to observe moths is a sheet, a light, and good weather.

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Octopus Problem Solving: Unraveling the Mysteries of Cephalopod Intelligence

Rima Chatterjee

Octopuses are fascinating creatures that have captured the attention of scientists and nature enthusiasts alike. These intelligent and highly adaptable animals possess remarkable problem-solving abilities, which have been the subject of extensive research . From opening jars to escaping enclosures , octopuses have demonstrated their remarkable cognitive skills and problem-solving prowess . In this article , we will explore the fascinating world of octopus problem solving , delving into the various techniques and strategies these cephalopods employ to overcome challenges. So, let’s dive in and uncover the secrets of octopus problem solving .

Key Takeaways

• Octopuses are highly intelligent creatures known for their problem-solving abilities.
• Octopuses have a unique ability to adapt and learn from their environment.
• Octopuses use their problem-solving skills to escape from enclosures and find food.
• Octopuses have been observed using tools and manipulating objects to solve problems.
• Studying octopus problem-solving abilities can provide insights into intelligence and cognition in animals.

The Fascinating World of Octopus Problem Solving

A. understanding the octopus brain.

Octopuses are truly remarkable creatures, known for their incredible problem-solving abilities and high level of intelligence. To truly appreciate their problem-solving skills , it is important to understand the complexity of the octopus brain .

The octopus brain is quite different from that of other animals . While humans have a centralized brain , the octopus has a decentralized nervous system . Two-thirds of their neurons are found in their arms , allowing them to process information independently. This decentralized structure enables octopuses to multitask and solve problems in a unique and efficient manner .

Furthermore, the octopus brain exhibits an impressive level of plasticity, which means it can adapt and change its neural connections based on its experiences . This adaptability allows octopuses to learn from their surroundings and adjust their problem-solving strategies accordingly.

B. The Science Behind Octopus Intelligence

Octopus intelligence has fascinated scientists for decades. Researchers have conducted numerous studies to unravel the secrets behind their problem-solving abilities. These studies have shed light on the science behind octopus intelligence and provided insights into their remarkable cognitive abilities .

One area of study focuses on octopus learning ability . Through experiments, scientists have discovered that octopuses can learn by observation. They have observed octopuses watching other octopuses solve puzzles and then successfully solving the same puzzles themselves. This observational learning showcases their ability to acquire new skills and adapt their problem-solving techniques .

Another fascinating aspect of octopus intelligence is their memory . Despite having a relatively short lifespan , octopuses possess an impressive memory . They can remember complex mazes, recognize individuals, and recall past experiences. This memory retention allows them to apply previously learned strategies to solve new problems efficiently.

Octopuses also exhibit exceptional manipulative skills . They can use tools to solve puzzles, such as unscrewing jars or manipulating objects to reach their desired outcome . This tool use demonstrates their ability to think critically and apply their knowledge in practical ways .

Furthermore, octopuses are masters of disguise. They possess remarkable camouflage tactics , allowing them to blend seamlessly into their surroundings. This ability not only helps them evade predators but also aids in problem-solving. By blending in, octopuses can observe their environment and strategize accordingly.

In conclusion, the world of octopus problem-solving is a fascinating one . Their unique brain structure , adaptability, observational learning, memory retention , manipulative skills , and camouflage tactics all contribute to their remarkable problem-solving abilities . By studying and understanding these incredible creatures , scientists continue to gain valuable insights into the depths of underwater intelligence .

Unraveling the Octopus Problem Solving Skills

A. The Octopus and Puzzles: A Unique Relationship

When it comes to problem-solving abilities in the animal kingdom , the octopus stands out as a remarkable creature . With their intelligence, cephalopod cognition , and octopus behavior , these marine animals have captivated scientists and researchers for years. One particular aspect of their cognitive abilities that has fascinated experts is their problem-solving skills , especially when it comes to puzzles.

Octopuses have been observed to engage in various puzzle-solving tasks , showcasing their incredible ability to think outside the box . These tasks often involve manipulating objects, using tools, and even escaping from confined spaces . Octopuses have been known to open jars , unscrew lids , and navigate through complex mazes, all in the pursuit of a reward or to solve a problem .

B. The Role of Tentacles in Problem Solving

One of the key factors that contribute to an octopus’s problem-solving prowess is its tentacles . These appendages , which are lined with suckers, are incredibly versatile and dexterous. Each tentacle contains hundreds of suckers, allowing the octopus to manipulate objects with precision and finesse.

The tentacles not only serve as a means of grasping and manipulating objects but also play a crucial role in the octopus’s sensory perception . The suckers on the tentacles are equipped with chemoreceptors, which enable the octopus to taste and smell its surroundings . This heightened sense of touch and taste allows the octopus to gather information about its environment, aiding in problem-solving tasks.

C. Octopus Adaptability: A Key to Problem Solving

Another remarkable aspect of octopus problem-solving is their adaptability. Octopuses are known for their ability to adapt to different situations and environments. This adaptability is crucial when it comes to problem-solving, as it allows the octopus to come up with innovative solutions to overcome challenges.

Octopuses have been observed using their problem-solving skills in various contexts , such as escaping from predators, finding food, and navigating complex underwater terrain . Their ability to quickly learn and adapt to new situations is a testament to their cognitive abilities and problem-solving skills .

Furthermore, octopuses have been observed to exhibit observational learning, where they learn from watching and imitating other octopuses. This ability to learn from their peers and adapt their problem-solving strategies accordingly showcases their social intelligence and cognitive flexibility .

In conclusion, octopuses are truly remarkable creatures when it comes to problem-solving. Their intelligence , adaptability, and unique physical attributes , such as their tentacles , contribute to their exceptional problem-solving skills . By unraveling the mysteries of octopus problem-solving, scientists and researchers gain valuable insights into the cognitive abilities of these fascinating marine animals .

When the Octopus is Not Working: Understanding the Downtime

A. the importance of rest in octopus problem solving.

Octopuses are fascinating creatures known for their intelligence, adaptability, and problem-solving abilities. However, just like any other living being , they also need their fair share of rest. Rest is crucial for an octopus’s overall well-being and plays a significant role in their problem-solving capabilities.

Rest allows the octopus’s brain to recharge and process information more efficiently. When an octopus is well-rested, it can approach problem-solving tasks with a clear and focused mind . This is because sleep helps consolidate memories and enhances learning, which are essential for an octopus to solve complex puzzles and escape from challenging situations .

Similar to humans, octopuses go through different sleep stages . They experience both rapid eye movement ( REM) sleep and non- REM sleep . During REM sleep , the octopus may exhibit twitching or color changes , indicating that their brain is actively processing information. Non- REM sleep , on the other hand , is a deeper sleep state where the octopus is less responsive to external stimuli .

It’s important to note that octopuses have different sleep patterns compared to humans. While humans typically have a consolidated period of sleep, octopuses have been observed to take short naps throughout the day . These naps are interspersed with periods of wakefulness, allowing them to rest and recharge without compromising their ability to respond to their environment.

B. The Impact of Stress on Octopus Problem Solving

Stress can have a significant impact on an octopus’s problem-solving abilities . Just like humans, octopuses experience stress in various situations , such as being in captivity or encountering predators. When an octopus is stressed, it can affect their cognitive abilities and hinder their problem-solving skills .

When an octopus is under stress, it releases stress hormones that can interfere with their ability to think clearly and make decisions. These hormones can impair their memory and learning abilities , making it more challenging for them to solve puzzles or escape from difficult situations . Additionally, stress can lead to a decrease in exploratory behavior and a heightened state of vigilance, which can further hinder their problem-solving capabilities.

To ensure optimal problem-solving abilities , it’s crucial to create an environment that minimizes stress for octopuses. This includes providing them with appropriate living conditions , such as ample space , hiding spots , and stimulating enrichment activities . By reducing stress levels , octopuses can focus their cognitive resources on problem-solving tasks, leading to better outcomes .

In conclusion, rest and stress management play vital roles in an octopus’s problem-solving abilities . By understanding the importance of rest and minimizing stress, we can create an environment that supports octopuses in utilizing their remarkable intelligence and problem-solving skills to the fullest.

Can Octopus Solve Problems: A Deep Dive

A. Documented Instances of Octopus Problem Solving

Octopuses are fascinating creatures known for their intelligence and problem-solving abilities . Over the years , researchers have documented numerous instances of octopuses displaying remarkable problem-solving skills . These instances provide valuable insights into the cognitive abilities of these marine creatures .

One well-known example of octopus problem solving involves their ability to escape from enclosures. Octopuses have been observed using their flexible bodies and strong arms to manipulate objects and find their way out of tanks and aquariums. In some cases , they have even been known to unscrew jar lids or squeeze through tiny openings to reach freedom.

Another area where octopuses have showcased their problem-solving prowess is in puzzle-solving. Researchers have conducted experiments where they present octopuses with puzzles or challenges that require them to use their cognitive abilities to find a solution . These puzzles often involve manipulating objects, such as opening a container to access a reward. Octopuses have demonstrated an impressive ability to solve these puzzles , showcasing their adaptability and learning abilities .

B. The Role of Environmental Factors in Problem Solving

While octopuses have shown remarkable problem-solving abilities, it is important to consider the role of environmental factors in shaping their cognitive skills . Octopuses inhabit diverse marine environments , and their ability to adapt and interact with their surroundings plays a significant role in their problem-solving capabilities.

One key environmental factor that influences octopus problem solving is their natural habitat . Octopuses are highly adaptable creatures , capable of camouflaging themselves to blend seamlessly with their surroundings. This ability to change color and texture allows them to hide from predators and ambush prey . It also enables them to approach problems from different angles , using their camouflage tactics to their advantage .

Another environmental factor that impacts octopus problem solving is their interaction with other species . Octopuses are known to observe and learn from their surroundings, including interactions with other marine life . By observing the behavior of other creatures , octopuses can gain insights and adapt their problem-solving strategies accordingly.

Furthermore, the complex structure of an octopus’s brain contributes to its problem-solving abilities . Octopuses have a highly developed nervous system , with a large portion of their neurons located in their arms . This distributed neural network allows them to process information and make decisions quickly. It also enables them to manipulate objects with precision and dexterity, aiding in their problem-solving endeavors .

In conclusion, octopuses have proven themselves to be adept problem solvers . Their documented instances of problem solving , combined with their adaptability, learning abilities , and unique brain structure , highlight their remarkable cognitive skills . By understanding the role of environmental factors in shaping their problem-solving abilities, we can gain a deeper appreciation for the intelligence and ingenuity of these fascinating creatures .

How Do Octopus Solve Problems: The Process Explained

A. the use of trial and error in octopus problem solving.

Octopuses are fascinating creatures known for their intelligence and problem-solving abilities . When faced with a challenge , they employ a variety of strategies to find a solution . One of the key methods they use is trial and error.

When an octopus encounters a problem , it begins by exploring different approaches . It may try various actions or manipulate objects in its environment to see what works. Through this process of trial and error, the octopus gains valuable information about the problem at hand.

For example, if an octopus is presented with a puzzle that requires opening a container to access food, it may initially attempt different techniques such as pulling, pushing, or squeezing the container . By observing the outcomes of these actions , the octopus learns which methods are effective and which are not. Over time, it refines its approach based on the feedback received.

B. The Role of Memory in Octopus Problem Solving

Memory plays a crucial role in the problem -solving abilities of octopuses. These intelligent creatures possess an impressive capacity for learning and retaining information. They can remember past experiences and apply that knowledge to future situations .

Octopuses have been observed to exhibit both short-term and long-term memory . Short-term memory allows them to recall recent events and actions, while long-term memory enables them to retain information over extended periods .

This ability to remember and learn from past experiences enhances an octopus’s problem-solving skills . It allows them to build upon previous successes and avoid repeating unsuccessful strategies . For instance, if an octopus encounters a part icular type of puzzle multiple times, it can recall the methods that worked in the past and apply them to similar challenges in the future .

Furthermore, octopuses have been shown to exhibit observational learning, where they can learn by watching and imitating the behavior of other octopuses. This form of social learning enables them to acquire new problem-solving techniques and adapt to novel situations more efficiently.

In conclusion, octopuses employ trial and error as well as memory to solve problems. Through their remarkable cognitive abilities and adaptability, these intelligent creatures continue to captivate researchers and provide valuable insights into the world of animal intelligence .

The Application of Octopus Problem Solving to Android Systems

A. the concept of octopus problem solving in technology.

When it comes to problem-solving, humans have often looked to nature for inspiration. One fascinating creature that has captured the attention of scientists and researchers is the octopus. These intelligent creatures possess remarkable problem-solving abilities that have piqued the interest of experts in various fields , including technology.

Octopus intelligence is a marvel to behold. These cephalopods exhibit complex cognitive abilities and behavior that allow them to navigate their environment with ease. From puzzle-solving to escape artistry, octopuses have demonstrated their remarkable problem-solving skills time and time again. But how can we apply these skills to the world of technology, specifically in Android systems?

To understand the potential for bio-inspired problem solving in Android systems, we must first delve into the intricacies of octopus problem-solving abilities . Octopuses are known for their tool use , underwater intelligence , and adaptability. They possess incredible manipulation skills and can learn through observation. Their memory is impressive, allowing them to recall past experiences and apply that knowledge to future situations .

B. The Potential for Bio-Inspired Problem Solving in Android Systems

The octopus ‘s problem-solving abilities offer a wealth of inspiration for the development of Android systems. By studying their behavior and cognitive abilities , researchers can gain valuable insights into creating more efficient and adaptable technology .

One area where octopus problem-solving can be applied to Android systems is in the realm of environmental interaction . Octopuses are masters of camouflage tactics, seamlessly blending into their surroundings to avoid predators or capture prey. This ability to adapt and interact with their environment can be incorporated into Android systems, allowing them to seamlessly integrate into various contexts and respond accordingly.

Another aspect of octopus problem-solving that can be harnessed for Android systems is their learning ability . Octopuses are capable of observational learning, meaning they can acquire new skills by watching and imitating others. This form of learning can be integrated into Android systems, enabling them to learn from user behavior and adapt their functionalities accordingly.

Furthermore, the octopus’s impressive memory and brain structure can inspire the development of more efficient and intelligent Android systems . By mimicking the octopus’s ability to recall past experiences, Android systems can enhance their decision-making processes and provide personalized experiences for users.

In conclusion, the concept of octopus problem-solving holds immense potential for the advancement of Android systems. By drawing inspiration from the intelligence , adaptability, and observational learning abilities of octopuses, researchers can create more efficient and adaptable technology . The application of bio-inspired problem -solving in Android systems has the potential to revolutionize the way we interact with technology, providing us with more personalized and seamless experiences .

Octopus Solving Problems: A Case Study

A. The Octopus and the Jar: A Classic Problem Solving Example

Octopuses are fascinating creatures known for their incredible problem-solving abilities . One classic example that showcases their intelligence and adaptability is the octopus and the jar experiment . In this experiment , researchers place a jar with a tasty treat inside it into the octopus’s tank , challenging the octopus to figure out how to access the reward .

The octopus , armed with its highly dexterous tentacles and keen observational skills , approaches the jar with curiosity. It carefully examines the jar , using its suckers to explore the surface and identify any potential openings . Through a combination of trial and error, the octopus discovers that it can unscrew the jar lid by twisting it with its tentacles .

This problem-solving behavior demonstrates the octopus’s ability to analyze its environment, identify obstacles, and devise creative solutions . It showcases their cognitive abilities and highlights their capacity for learning through observation and experimentation.

Octopus Intelligence and Cognitive Abilities

The octopus ‘s problem-solving prowess is a testament to its intelligence and cognitive abilities . Octopuses have a highly developed nervous system , with a complex brain structure that allows for advanced problem-solving and learning. Their large brains contain specialized lobes responsible for memory, sensory processing , and decision-making.

B. The Octopus and the Maze: A Test of Memory and Problem Solving

Another fascinating experiment that showcases the octopus’s problem-solving skills is the octopus and the maze test . In this experiment , researchers construct a maze with various pathways and hiding spots , challenging the octopus to navigate through it to find a reward.

The octopus enters the maze , using its keen memory and problem-solving abilities to remember the path it has taken and avoid dead ends . It relies on its observational learning skills to identify patterns and make informed decisions about which direction to take. Through persistence and adaptability, the octopus successfully navigates the maze and reaches the reward .

Octopus Memory and Learning Ability

The octopus ‘s ability to navigate complex mazes highlights its exceptional memory and learning ability . Octopuses have been shown to possess both short-term and long-term memory , allowing them to recall information and adapt their behavior accordingly. This memory retention enables them to solve problems and overcome challenges, even in unfamiliar environments .

Octopus Adaptability and Environmental Interaction

Octopuses are highly adaptable creatures that can quickly adjust their behavior to suit their surroundings. Their problem-solving abilities are closely linked to their ability to interact with their environment. Octopuses can use their surroundings to their advantage , whether it be manipulating objects, using tools, or employing camouflage tactics to hide from predators or prey.

In conclusion, the octopus’s problem-solving abilities are a testament to their intelligence, adaptability, and cognitive prowess . Through experiments like the jar and maze tests, researchers have gained valuable insights into the octopus’s learning abilities , memory retention , and observational skills . These studies contribute to our understanding of the fascinating world of octopus behavior and their remarkable problem-solving capabilities . Conclusion

In conclusion, octopuses are truly remarkable creatures when it comes to problem-solving abilities. Their flexible bodies , complex nervous systems , and highly developed cognitive skills enable them to navigate various challenges in their environment. Through their ability to use tools, camouflage, and mimicry, octopuses demonstrate their adaptability and resourcefulness. Their problem-solving skills have been observed in various experiments , where they have shown the ability to solve puzzles, open jars , and even escape from enclosures. Octopuses are a testament to the incredible diversity and ingenuity of nature, and studying their problem-solving abilities can provide valuable insights into the evolution of intelligence. As we continue to explore and understand the fascinating world of octopuses, we can gain a deeper appreciation for the complexity and wonder of the natural world .

Frequently Asked Questions

1. what is meant by ‘octopus problem solving’.

‘Octopus problem solving ‘ refers to the ability of octopuses to use their cognitive abilities to overcome challenges or obstacles. This can include tasks like opening jars to get food, escaping from enclosures, or using tools. It’s a key part of cephalopod cognition and is a testament to the octopus’s intelligence .

2. How good are octopus problem solving skills?

Octopuses are known for their exceptional problem-solving skills . They can solve complex puzzles , escape from enclosures, and even use tools, demonstrating a level of intelligence that is quite remarkable for marine life . Their problem-solving skills are a result of their unique brain structure , observational learning, and adaptability.

3. What does ‘octopus not working’ mean?

‘Octopus not working’ could refer to a few different scenarios . In a technological context , it could mean that an application named ‘Octopus’ is malfunctioning. In a biological context , it could mean that an octopus is not exhibiting its usual behavior or problem-solving abilities, possibly due to illness or environmental factors.

4. Can octopuses solve puzzles?

Yes, octopuses can solve puzzles. They have been observed in research and experiments to manipulate their environment and use tools to solve complex problems . This is a testament to their cognitive abilities and is a part of their unique octopus puzzle-solving skills .

5. Can octopuses solve problems?

Yes, octopuses are known for their problem-solving abilities. They can manipulate their environment, use tools, and even escape from enclosures. These abilities are a testament to their intelligence and adaptability, and they demonstrate the remarkable cognitive abilities of this species .

6. How to use Octopus on Android?

‘Octopus’ is a powerful keymapping and peripheral devices connecting tool for mobile gaming on Android. To use it, you need to download it from the Google Play Store , open the app , and follow the instructions to map your game controls . Please note that this is unrelated to the marine creature .

7. How do octopuses solve problems?

Octopuses solve problems by using their cognitive abilities , including their memory , observational learning, and manipulation skills . They can use tools, manipulate their environment, and even escape from enclosures. This is a testament to their intelligence and adaptability.

8. What is octopus solving problems?

‘ Octopus solving problems ‘ refers to the ability of octopuses to use their cognitive abilities to overcome challenges or obstacles. This can include tasks like opening jars to get food, escaping from enclosures, or using tools. It’s a key part of cephalopod cognition and is a testament to the octopus’s intelligence .

9. What is octopus intelligence?

Octopus intelligence refers to the cognitive abilities of octopuses, including their problem-solving skills , memory, observational learning, and manipulation skills . Octopuses have a unique brain structure that enables these abilities , and they are known for their adaptability and ability to interact with their environment in complex ways .

10. What is known about octopus behavior?

Octopus behavior is complex and fascinating. They are known for their problem-solving skills , ability to use tools, escape artistry, and unique methods of interaction with their environment. Octopuses also have impressive camouflage tactics , allowing them to blend in with their surroundings to evade predators or sneak up on prey. Their behavior is a testament to their intelligence and adaptability.

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5 Remarkable Examples of Animal Intelligence That Will Leave You in Awe

• Post author: Sherrie Hurd, A.A.
• Post published: April 19, 2019
• Reading time: 7 mins read
• Post category: Physics & Natural Sciences / Uncommon Science

Animal intelligence could stretch to more than just an elephant’s excellent memory! As these examples will reveal.

The intelligence of animals surpasses what we realize. But the first question is, how is animal intelligence measured? There have been many experiments carried out that could prove animal intelligence really exists. We only have to look at Pavlov’s Dogs study to see how animals can quickly learn to associate a sound with behaviour or action.

But other, far more compelling research shows activity is more evident than we thought when it comes to the brains of animals.

Here are just a couple of impressive things that reveal animal intelligence at its peak!

Animals are spiritual beings.

Of course, you heard that right. There is evidence to suggest animals can react emotionally to their surroundings. They can feel and respond to grief , e.g. in a death, and can express the wonderful feeling of existence itself.

Psychologists Marc Bekoff and his colleague Steven Kotler looked at whether animals really experienced spirituality. Bekoff and Kotler found ample evidence that animals can have a morally conscious and emotional intelligence.

Whilst Bekoff and Kotler’s work is anecdotal, Darwinian theory supports it well. The belief of Darwin was evolutionary continuity. This belief states that there were no different kinds of intelligence , only different degrees with the various species.

“The bottom line is that if we have something, they (other animals) do too. It would behoove us to study the questions at hand rather than dismiss them because animals can’t possibly do or experience something that we think is uniquely human.” -Darwin

Only humans were self-conscious, linguistic, moral, and rational. This is what we believed for a long time. Now we know the truth. There’s more startling evidence as well. It seems that animals could possibly think about pains and pleasures from the past,

Darwin said. They actually possess “excellent memories and some power of imagination”.

Solving puzzles is just as easy for crows as 5-year-old children.

Again, this could be the title of a well-thumbed kids’ comic book. But experiments recently conducted, and many of them, suggests truth in the crow’s intelligence . These are indeed creatures with remarkable talent, especially when it comes to solving problems.

The University of Auckland researchers discovered that crows noticed that liquid rises when objects are dropped into tubes of water, water which held a treat. They would then be able to reach the treat that was inside. If the water levels were higher, they could get the treat faster as well. Objects that sank instead of floated would also reduce the time it took for the treat to come to the top of the tube.

Crows can also bend a wire to fish treats from small tubes. This was also quickly realized by the research team. This is why researchers compare a crow’s intelligence is to 5-7-year-olds .

Elephants can show empathy

An elephant never forgets, right? But, they can also seemingly show understanding and empathy . During controlled experiments, elephants showed their desire to work together with tasks . When learning to pull a rope to acquire a treat, they did this together instead of alone.

Contrary to what some may believe, elephants do not ponder long over the dead. They have been known to eat their dead or at least, sniff them and walk away. As for their reaction to remains, such as bones, an elephant may linger for a while or become aggravated for some unknown reason.

A recent study proves such behavior: When an African elephant sees a skull from its own kind, it stares longer than when rhino or buffalo skulls are introduced. It’s the same with sticks as opposed to ivory.

The elephant is smart enough to know the difference between something originating from their kind and something else entirely.

Dogs can be taught words

We’ve all tried to teach Fido how to shake hands and Rover to cartwheel. But John Pilley , Psychology researcher, went a step further and trained his dog, Chaser to recognize over a thousand toys, by name. What’s more, over 90% of the time, Chaser could recognize certain toys when Pilley asked for them.

Chaser has learned even more, including recognizing verbs and nouns taught by Pilley Instructions are easy for her, she can put her paw and nose on objects, and even pick them up.

This is an achievement of intelligence for canines, and all it took was hours of intensive training . Chaser is special and not all dogs can learn at her pace.

Picking locks are easy for Cockatoos

Finally, let’s learn about the cheeky Cockatoo. They too display animal intelligence enough to understand tricky puzzles and solve them, all for a delicious treat. A 2013 study by Alice Auersperg, revealed the difficulty of such puzzles, and that the bird actually has to first open the box. Here’s how the trick worked.

Inside the box was a cashew. So, the cockatoo had to pull out a bolt, remove a pin, take out a screw, turn a wheel, and removed a latch by using a sliding technique. All these things, the Cockatoo accomplished fairly easy.

Without opposable thumbs, as humans have, this did take a long time. It did take two hours for the Cockatoo, but eventually, the bird solved the intricate puzzle. A bird had a goal and completed the goal, a goal that wasn’t an easy and quick task. This says quite a bit about the bird’s perseverance, wouldn’t you say.

Whilst this research can be contested, it could also lay the foundations for new ways of thinking about animal intelligence . Next time you spend time with your pet, maybe you can watch them more, and learn a few morals and lessons about determination.

References :

• https://www.psychologytoday.com

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This Post Has 4 Comments

Great read…going to show my friends this. They both have dogs and birds.

Thank you for reading, Dion. 🙂

My problem with all of these examples is that animals can be trained to perform all sorts of tricks on command. The raven one is cute but..since it has a leg band, how am I to be sure that it wasn’t trained to do things for a reward?

The dog is cute too but again, we do not know what is going on behind the scenes. We see close-ups of the dog with the owner off screen so we don’t know if it is being given cues of some sort. When the dog is told to get “meow” most of the time the dog isn’t even looking around but rather seems to be waiting for some sort of command or cue.

A better example of showing how well it thinks is to give it completely new toys like a ball, dolphin, spider, etc then have it retrieve, say, a ball or whatever without the word being attached to the appearance of just one toy. In other words, instead of having it recognize just one toy based on a name…se if it can actually recognize a teddy bear or ball..something that it has NOT been introduced to so there is no “process of elimination”.

Please don’t misunderstand..I think animals understand a great deal more than we ever give credit for but to me these examples are just not very convincing.

The dog is really super cute though.

I see your point here, Ryu. But as a person living with animals every day and since my childhood, I’ve seen remarkable attitudes, expressions and actions from the animals I Loved and love still. I would love to see these things tested further, as you suggested.

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10 Most Intelligent Animals

Species besides humans that think and solve problems

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• Ph.D., Biomedical Sciences, University of Tennessee at Knoxville
• B.A., Physics and Mathematics, Hastings College

Animal intelligence is hard to pin down because "intelligence" takes different forms. Examples of types of intelligence include language comprehension, self-recognition, cooperation, altruism, problem-solving, and mathematics skills. It's easy to recognize intelligence in other primates, but many species may be smarter than you think. Here are some of the most intelligent animals.

Key Takeaways

• High intelligence exists in both vertebrates and invertebrates . 
• It's difficult to test intelligence in non-human animals. The mirror test is one measure of self-awareness. Social skills, emotional capacity , problem-solving, and mathematical ability also indicate intelligence.
• All vertebrates show some degree of intelligence. Vertebrates are mammals , birds , reptiles , amphibians , and fish . High levels of invertebrate intelligence are seen in cephalopods and insect colonies .

Ravens and Crows

The entire Corvid family of birds is clever. The group includes magpies , jays, ravens , and crows . These birds are the only non-primate vertebrates that invent their own tools . Crows recognize human faces, communicate complex concepts with other crows, and think about the future. Many experts compare crow intelligence to that of a 7-year-old human child.

Chimpanzees

Chimps are our closest relatives in the animal kingdom , so it's unsurprising they display intelligence similar to that of humans. Chimps fashion spears and other tools , display a wide range of emotions and recognize themselves in a mirror . Chimps can learn sign language to communicate with humans.

Elephants have the largest brains of any land animal . The cortex of an elephant's brain has as many neurons as a human brain . Elephants have exceptional memories, cooperate with each other, and demonstrate self-awareness . Like primates and birds, elephants engage in play and are easily one of the most intelligent animals.

Like humans and chimps, gorillas are primates. The gorilla named Koko became famous for learning sign language and caring for a pet cat . Gorillas can form original sentences to communicate with humans and understand the use of symbols to represent objects and more complex concepts.

Dolphins and whales are at least as smart as birds and primates. Like primates, dolphins and whales are mammals. A dolphin has a large brain relative to its body size. The cortex of a human brain is highly convoluted, but a dolphin brain has even more folds! Dolphins and their kin are the only marine animals that have passed the mirror test of self-awareness.

Pigs solve mazes, understand and display emotions, and understand symbolic language . Piglets grasp the concept of reflection at a younger age than humans. Six-week-old piglets that see food in a mirror can work out where the food is located. In contrast, it takes human babies several months to understand reflection. Pigs also understand abstract representations and can apply this skill to play video games using a joystick.

While we're most familiar with intelligence in other vertebrates, some invertebrates are incredibly clever. The octopus has the largest brain of any invertebrate, yet three-fifths of its neurons are actually in its arms. The octopus is the only invertebrate that uses tools. An octopus named Otto was known to throw rocks and spray water at the bright overhead lights of his aquarium in order to short them out.

Parrots are thought to be as smart as a human child . These birds solve puzzles and also understand the concept of cause and effect . The Einstein of the parrot world is the African Grey, a bird known for its astounding memory and ability to count. African Grey parrots can learn an impressive number of human words and use them in context to communicate with people.

Man's best friend uses its intelligence to relate to humans. Dogs understand emotions, show empathy , and understand symbolic language . According to canine intelligence expert Stanley Coren, the average dog understands around 165 human words. However, they can learn many more. A border collie named Chaser demonstrated an understanding of 1,022 words. An analysis of his vocabulary was published in the February 2011 issue of the Behavioural Processes Journal .

Aesop's fable of the Crow and the Pitcher could have been written about a raccoon . Researchers at the USDA National Wildlife Center and the University of Wyoming gave raccoons a pitcher of water containing marshmallows and some pebbles. In order to reach the marshmallows, the raccoons had to raise the water level. Half of the raccoons figured out how to use pebbles to get the treat. Another simply found a way to knock over the pitcher.

Raccoons are also notoriously good at picking locks and can remember solutions to problems for three years.

Other Intelligent Animals

Really, a list of the 10 most intelligent animals barely scratches the surface. Other super-smart animals include rats , squirrels , cats , otters , pigeons , and even chickens .

Colony-forming species—such as bees and ants —display a different sort of intelligence. While an individual might not accomplish great feats, insects work together to solve problems in a way that rivals vertebrate intelligence.

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5.1 Animal problem-solving: using tools

From the earliest, most primitive stick or piece of rock, to the most sophisticated supercomputer or jet aircraft of modern times, humans have been using tools to solve problems since prehistoric times.

Given the advantages of using tools, it is perhaps surprising that it's not more common for animals to use them. There are examples of tool use by other species: some otters use stones to break open shellfish; some monkeys do the same to break open nuts; and some chimpanzees ‘fish’ for termites with sticks (Emery and Clayton, 2009). But it appears to be a general pattern that all humans use tools and most other species do not. Is this because animal minds do not have the capability to use tools? Tool use does, after all, involve a number of aspects of executive function, including: working out what a tool can be used for; planning how to use it; and remembering what the tool has managed to do (and failed to do) before.

While other species may not have the same degree of neocortical development and executive function as humans, are they able to use tools to solve problems to some extent?

There is evidence that the nearest evolutionary neighbours of humans, the other great apes (gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans), are able to solve problems using tools. A typical laboratory experiment involves putting food into an apparatus where the animal cannot reach it using their bodies alone, e.g. if testing chimpanzees, the apparatus will prevent the chimpanzees from reaching the food with their fingers. Tools, such as sticks of varying lengths or shapes, are left near the apparatus that will, if used correctly, allow the animal to access the food. Visalberghi and colleagues (1995) showed that a variety of primate species could solve such problems, but great apes were better than other primates (monkeys) at selecting the best tools, and adapting tools to the needs of the task.

But possibly the best non-human tool users are, perhaps surprisingly, to be found in species without a neocortex: birds. Emery and Clayton (2009) and Seed and Byrne (2010) give examples of a number of bird species with impressive tool-using and problem-solving abilities, including crows, jays and finches. One of the star species, though, is the New Zealand kea (Figure 8).

This is a photograph of a kea − a type of parrot from New Zealand that has impressive problem-solving abilities. The kea has green and blue plumage and is perched on a window frame.

Keas have been shown to solve a fairly simple problem (where food is obtained by hauling up a string) on the first attempt − suggesting they had mentally worked out the solution before starting the task, rather than by trial and error (Werdenich and Huber, 2006). They have also been shown to solve ‘second-order’ tool-use tasks, where one tool must be used to acquire or adapt another, in order to then complete the task (Auersperg et al., 2010), and there is evidence that they can learn from observing other keas performing a problem-solving task (Huber et al., 2001). As well as being able to solve problems as individuals, keas have been shown to collaborate to solve problems too (Tebbich et al., 1996).

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Octopuses keep surprising us - here are eight examples how

Octopuses have blue blood, three hearts and a doughnut-shaped brain. But these aren't even the most unusual things about them!

Known for their otherworldly look and remarkable intelligence, octopuses continue to reveal astonishing qualities, abilities and behaviour.

1. More than one brain

It's a well-known fact that octopuses have eight arms. But did you know that each arm contains its own 'mini brain'?

Jon Ablett, curator of the Museum's cephalopod collection (including octopuses), tells us more:

This arrangement enables octopuses to complete tasks with their arms more quickly and effectively.

Moreover, while each arm is capable of acting independently - able to taste, touch and move without direction - the centralised brain is also able to exert top-down control.

This was proven experimentally in 2011 when researchers tested whether an octopus could learn to guide one of its arms through a maze to reach food. The maze was designed so that the arm would have to leave water - and so not be able to use its chemical sensors to find the food. Transparent walls enabled the octopus to see the food. Most of the octopuses were eventually successful at guiding their arm to the food - proving that the central brain, which processed the visual information, could control the arm.

Thanks to their nine brains, it seems that octopuses have the benefit of both localised and centralised control over their actions.

2. Seriously clever

Scientists use the size of an animal's brain relative to its body as a rough guide to its intelligence, as it gives an indication of how much an animal is 'investing' in its brain.

It's not a perfect measure, as other factors such as the degree of folding in the brain also play a role, but smarter animals tend to have a higher brain-to-body ratio.

An octopus's brain-to-body ratio is the largest of any invertebrate. It's also larger than many vertebrates, although not mammals.

Octopuses have about as many neurons as a dog - the common octopus ( Octopus vulgaris ) has around 500 million. About two thirds are located in its arms. The rest are in the doughnut-shaped brain, which is wrapped around the oesophagus and located in the octopus's head.

Octopuses have demonstrated intelligence in a number of ways, says Jon. 'In experiments they've solved mazes and completed tricky tasks to get food rewards. They're also adept at getting themselves in and out of containers.'

This octopus squeezed itself into a broken bottle on the seafloor © Richard Whitcombe/Shutterstock.com

There are also intriguing anecdotes about octopuses' abilities and mischievous behaviour.

'I remember reading one about a lab where all the fish were going missing from their tank,' says Jon. 'The staff set up a little video camera and it turned out that one of the octopuses was getting out of its tank, going to the other tank, opening it, eating the fish, closing the lid, going back to its own tank and hiding the evidence.'

There is footage of similar sneaky behaviour and ingenious problem-solving happening in the wild. For example, this BBC video shows a giant Pacific octopus ( Enteroctopus dofleini ) poaching crabs from a fisherman's pot:

Meanwhile, the sneaky larger Pacific striped octopus uses scare tactics when hunting for its dinner.

It creeps up to its prey, such as a shrimp, and taps it on its shoulder. More often than not, the startled shrimp leaps away from the arm that touched it and darts into the clutches of the waiting octopus. It's handy having seven additional arms.

3. They can use tools

Tools use is relatively rare in the animal kingdom and is something we tend to associate with apes, monkeys, dolphins and some birds (particularly crows and parrots). It is a good indicator of the ability to learn. Among invertebrates, only octopuses and a few insects are known to use tools.

Jon elaborates, 'As well as solving tasks using tools to get food rewards in the lab, in the wild octopuses have been shown to build little dens, and to use stones to create sort of shields to protect the entrance.'

They pile up anything they can find - rocks, broken shells, even broken glass and bottle caps.

Small individuals of the common blanket octopus ( Tremoctopus violaceus ) carry tentacles from the Portuguese man o' war as a weapon. These tentacles carry a potent and painful venom - the common blanket octopus is immune but can inflict their effects on unwitting predators and prey.

The most impressive and convincing example of tool use by octopuses came in 2009, when a few veined octopus ( Amphioctopus marginatus ) individuals were observed collecting discarded coconut shells in Indonesia.

The veined octopus ( Amphioctopus marginatus ) has found an innovative use for both coconut and sea shells and collects them from the seafloor © SergeUWPhoto/Shutterstock.com

After they dug up the shells, the octopuses gave them a good clean with jets of water. They then carried them to a new location and assembled them as a shelter. Travelling with the shells underneath their body resulted in a slow and ungainly 'stilt walk' along the sea floor.

This makes the octopuses more vulnerable to predators, but it seems they are willing to accept the short-term risk for future protection. The scientists who discovered the behaviour argue that this, and the fact the shells are carried around to be used when needed, is conclusive evidence of genuine tool use.

Watch this behaviour in action and find out more from the team involved:

4. Ability to recognise people (and pick on them!)

Octopuses have large optic lobes, areas of the brain dedicated to vision, so we know it is important to their lifestyles. 

Jon adds, 'Octopuses appear to be able to recognise individuals outside of their own species, including human faces. It's not unique behaviour - some mammals and crows can do it too - but it is rather unusual.'

Scientific American  reported a story from the University of Otago in New Zealand where a captive octopus apparently took a dislike to one of the staff. Every time the person passed the tank, the octopus squirted a jet of water at her.

If you catch the eye of an octopus, you'd better hope it likes you © Damsea/Shutterstock.com

Biologists at the Seattle Aquarium designed an experiment to test the  recognition abilities of the giant Pacific octopus .

Over the course of two weeks, one person fed a group of octopuses regularly, while another person touched them with a bristly stick. At the end of the experiment, the octopuses behaved differently to the 'nice' keeper and the 'mean' one, which confirmed the octopuses could distinguish the two individuals, despite the fact they wore identical uniforms.

5. Unusual sexy time

Many male octopuses lack external genitalia and instead use a modified arm, called a hectocotylus, to pass their sperm to the female.

Jon says 'The appearance of the hectocotylus varies between species. Some look like a syringe, others more like a spoon and one - belonging to the North Atlantic octopus ( Bathypolypus arcticus ) - even looks like a little toast rack.

Each species has a slightly different method, adds Jon.

'In argonauts , also called paper nautiluses, the male octopus goes one step further in his attempts to reproduce - leaving his sexual appendage behind in the lady octopus when he jets away.'

Once a male has handed over his sperm, it's game over. Most male octopuses die within a couple of months of mating.

6. Self-sacrificing mums

Life's not easy for octopus mums either. They literally give their lives for their young ones.

'In some octopus species, the females show parental care,' says Jon. 'They guard their eggs, protecting them from predators, and waft water over them to oxygenate them.'

They keep up this behavior until the eggs hatch. In shallow-water species it can last up to about three months, but some octopuses take their level of care to the extreme. 

An octopus guarding its eggs © scubadesign/Shutterstock.com

The title of 'mum of the year' goes to Graneledone boreopacifica . This deep-sea octopus was observed brooding her clutch of eggs for 53 months - that's nearly four and a half years. It's the longest brooding period known for any animal.

During the course of 18 dives to the depths of Monterey Canyon, California, the researchers never saw the female leave her eggs or eat anything, not even crabs or shrimp that wandered close by. Instead, the researchers saw the female fading away - she lost weight, her skin became loose and pale, and her eyes grew cloudy.

Her astounding self-sacrifice gave her offspring time to reach an advanced stage of development. G. boreopacifica hatchlings are like miniature adults by the time they emerge, giving them a good chance of survival. On the researchers' final visit, the eggs had hatched and the female was gone.

Although no other octopus is known to look after their eggs for such a long time, virtually all share the same fate: inevitable death.

Since male octopuses don't survive for long after sex, the sea is full of little orphan octopuses.

7. Cunning disguises and escape techniques

Octopuses are probably the world's most skilled camouflage artists.

Jon explains, 'Thousands of specialised cells under their skin, called chromatophores, help them to change colour in an instant. In addition, they have papilli - tiny areas of skin that they can expand or retract to rapidly change the texture of their skin to match their surroundings.'

Octopuses are able to change both their colour and skin texture © Paul Vinten/Shutterstock.com

Inspired by the phenomenal camouflage ability of octopuses (and cuttlefish), researchers have recently  engineered a synthetic skin  that mimics the function and design of the papillae, creating a stretchy material that can be programmed to transform into 3D shapes.

Perhaps the most impressive of all self-concealers is the mimic octopus ( Thaumoctopus mimicus ).

Discovered in 1998 in Indonesia, this octopus doesn't copy surrounding rocks, reefs and seaweed like other octopuses, but instead disguises itself as other animals that predators tend to avoid.

By contorting its body, arranging its arms and modifying its behaviour, it can seemingly turn into a wide variety of venomous animals. Lionfish, banded sole and sea snakes are among those it impersonates.

The mimic octopus ( Thaumoctopus mimicus ) impersonates lots of different animals to keep itself safe from predators © Luke Suen/Shutterstock.com

Jon says 'Plenty of other creatures pretend to be other animals, but the mimic octopus is the only one that we know about that can impersonate so many different species. It's a true shape-shifter.

'While camouflaging yourself as a rock means you need to stay still while the predator is around, disguising yourself as an animal means you can also move out of the danger zone.'

Mimic octopuses can flee from danger while disguised. This octopus is imitating a venomous banded sole. It even copies the swimming style of the flatfish. © Ethan Daniels/Shutterstock.com

Scientists even suspect that the mimic octopus selects a creature to impersonate based on what's living in the area, choosing one that represents the greatest threat to its potential predator. When a mimic octopus was attacked by territorial damselfishes, for example, it disguised itself as one of their predators, a banded sea snake.

In 2005, researchers reported another cunning solution for moving away from danger without breaking the camouflage illusion: walking away on two legs (well, arms).

In the first example of bipedal locomotion under the sea, two tropical octopuses were found to lift up six of their arms and walk backwards on the other two.

This allowed the algae octopus ( Abdopus aculeatus ) to keep its other arms extended and maintain its appearance of algae even while moving. Meanwhile, the veined octopus ( Amphioctopus marginatus ) walked with six of its arms curled under its body, possibly to appear like a coconut rolling along the seafloor. Both were able to move faster than their usual many-armed crawl.

Take a look at the unusual locomotion in this SciFri video featuring researcher Dr Christine Huffard:

8. Builder of cities

With very few known exceptions, octopuses are generally antisocial creatures.

But in 2012, scientists made a surprising discovery in Jervis Bay, Australia: the supposedly solitary gloomy octopus ( Octopus tetricus ) actually builds underwater cities. Congregations of dens are formed from rock outcrops and discarded piles of shells from the clams and scallops the octopuses had feasted on.

Population sizes certainly aren't up to London standards, with only around 15 occupants living in Octopolis, as it was dubbed, and Octlantis - a second, nearby octopus commune studied in 2017. But they are far higher than scientists anticipated based on the loner reputation of  O. tetricus .

A gloomy octopus ( Octopus tetricus ) hiding in a den © S Rohrlach/Shutterstock.com

City living has its advantages and drawbacks, as we all know. Frequent aggression, chases and even den evictions were observed among the octopuses living at Octlantis.

The researchers say they're not sure what the benefits of living in a densely populated settlement are for these octopuses, but it may just be a case of necessity, with limited den spaces available in the otherwise flat and featureless area.

Finally, why do octopuses have blue blood?

Are you still wondering why octopus blood is blue and what the three hearts do?

Well, the blue blood is because the protein, haemocyanin, which carries oxygen around the octopus's body, contains copper rather than iron like we have in our own haemoglobin.

The copper-based protein is more efficient at transporting oxygen molecules in cold and low-oxygen conditions, so is ideal for life in the ocean.

If the blood (called haemolymph in invertebrates) becomes deoxygenated - when the animal dies, for example - it loses its blue colour and turns clear instead.

An octopus's three hearts have slightly different roles. One heart circulates blood around the body, while the other two pump it past the gills, to pick up oxygen.

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Unlocking Dolphins’ Intelligence and Problem-Solving Abilities

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Dolphins are renowned for their remarkable intelligence and exceptional problem-solving abilities . With larger brains in proportion to their body size and a highly developed neocortex responsible for conscious reasoning and judgment, dolphins possess cognitive abilities that have fascinated scientists for decades.

These incredible marine mammals have a sophisticated communication system, utilizing vocalizations, body language, and facial expressions to convey emotions and abstract concepts. They can tackle challenges and learn through experience, demonstrating their adaptable problem-solving skills.

What sets dolphins apart is their remarkable creativity in tackling obstacles. They have been observed using tools, such as sponges, to protect their noses while foraging for food, showcasing their innovative problem-solving techniques.

Furthermore, dolphins exhibit complex social behavior, forming tight-knit bonds and hierarchical structures within their communities. Their interactions and cooperative behaviors provide further insight into their intelligence and social cognition.

Ongoing research seeks to delve deeper into the cognitive capacities and problem-solving skills of dolphins, shedding light on their remarkable abilities and enhancing our understanding of their complex social lives. By unlocking the secrets of dolphin intelligence , we can foster greater appreciation and respect for these remarkable marine mammals.

The Science Behind Dolphin Intelligence

Research has revealed that dolphins have a complex communication system that enables them to convey emotions and abstract concepts. They use a combination of vocalizations, body language, and facial expressions to express themselves and interact with other members of their pod. This sophisticated communication system further enhances their problem-solving skills, as they can collaborate and coordinate their efforts to overcome challenges.

Dolphins also exhibit creativity in their problem-solving approaches. For example, some dolphins have been observed using tools like sponges to protect their noses while searching for food on the seabed. This behavior demonstrates their ability to innovate and find unique solutions to specific challenges.

Understanding dolphin intelligence is of utmost importance for conservation and protection efforts. Dolphins face various threats, including habitat degradation, pollution, and fishing activities. By comprehending their cognitive capabilities, scientists and conservationists can develop effective strategies to safeguard their welfare and promote their conservation.

Communication Among Dolphins

Dolphins possess a complex communication system that involves vocalizations, body language, and facial expressions, enabling them to convey emotions and abstract concepts. Through a variety of vocalizations such as clicks, whistles, and trills, they can communicate information about their location, identity, and social status. These vocalizations are produced using specialized structures in their nasal passages, allowing them to create a wide range of sounds. Research has shown that dolphins can even produce signature whistles, which are unique to each individual, acting as a form of name or identity. These whistles are used in social bonding and for identifying and maintaining contact with others in their pod.

In addition to vocalizations, dolphins also rely on body language and facial expressions to communicate. They use movements such as leaping, tail slaps, and head gestures to convey a variety of messages. For example, a dolphin leaping out of the water may signal excitement or a greeting, while a tail slap could indicate a warning or assertion of dominance. Their use of facial expressions, such as eye contact and mouth movements, further enhances their ability to communicate and establish social bonds within their pod.

Problem-Solving Skills of Dolphins

One fascinating aspect of dolphin problem-solving is their ability to use tools. While not as extensive as the tool use observed in some primate species, dolphins have been observed using sponges to protect their noses while foraging on the seafloor. By using this innovative strategy, they can access food sources that would otherwise be out of reach.

Studying the impressive problem-solving skills and cognitive abilities of dolphins provides valuable insights into the diversity of intelligence in the animal kingdom. By deepening our understanding of these remarkable creatures, we can better protect and conserve their natural habitats, ensuring their survival for generations to come.

Creative Solutions in Dolphin Problem-Solving

Dolphins showcase their adaptability and inventiveness by using tools, such as sponges, to protect their noses while foraging for food. This behavior, known as “sponging,” is a striking example of the creative problem-solving skills that dolphins possess. It is primarily observed among the bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Western Australia, where they have learned to navigate the sandy sea floor without injuring their sensitive snouts.

In the words of marine biologist Janet Mann, “These dolphins have solved a major life challenge for themselves in an elegant way. They have not only learned to use tools, but they have learned to protect themselves while doing so.”

The Origins of Sponging Behavior

The sponging behavior first emerged in Shark Bay’s dolphin population over a few generations, with specific individuals pioneering the technique and passing it down to their offspring. The cultural transmission of this behavior demonstrates the complex social learning capabilities of dolphins. It also sheds light on the cultural diversity that can exist among different dolphin communities, as sponging is not observed in other populations.

Social Behavior of Dolphins

Dolphins exhibit intricate social behavior, forming tight-knit bonds and hierarchical structures within their communities. These intelligent marine mammals live in groups called pods, which can consist of a few individuals up to several hundred. Within a pod, dolphins establish strong social connections and communicate through a variety of vocalizations, body language, and facial expressions. These forms of communication are crucial for maintaining social cohesion and coordinating group activities.

One fascinating aspect of dolphin social behavior is their ability to form alliances and cooperate with other members of their pod. They engage in cooperative hunting, where a group of dolphins work together to corral fish into a tight ball, making it easier to catch them. This coordinated effort requires effective communication and collaboration among the dolphins, showcasing their high level of intelligence and sophisticated social skills.

The Significance of Understanding Dolphin Intelligence

A deeper understanding of dolphin intelligence is crucial for effective conservation and protection measures, as these fascinating creatures face numerous threats. Dolphins, known for their intelligence and problem-solving abilities, are highly vulnerable to environmental changes, pollution, habitat loss, and human activities such as fishing and captivity. By delving into the intricacies of dolphin intelligence, researchers can develop comprehensive conservation strategies that address the specific needs of these marine mammals.

As ongoing research strives to uncover more about dolphin intelligence, it is essential to recognize the need for conservation measures that protect these remarkable creatures and their habitats. By enhancing our understanding of dolphin intelligence, we can implement targeted conservation actions that promote the long-term survival and well-being of dolphins and other marine mammals.

Can Dolphins’ Communication and Language Skills Help Them in Problem-Solving?

In conclusion, dolphins’ intelligence and problem-solving abilities are truly awe-inspiring, and ongoing research aims to unravel the depths of their remarkable cognitive capabilities. Dolphins have larger brains in proportion to their body size and a highly developed neocortex, allowing for conscious reasoning and judgment. Their sophisticated communication system, using vocalizations, body language, and facial expressions, enables them to express emotions and abstract concepts.

Dolphins exhibit an impressive range of problem-solving skills and show creativity in their approaches. They can solve challenges and learn through experience, showcasing their cognitive abilities. For example, dolphins have been observed using tools like sponges to protect their noses while searching for food, highlighting their innovative problem-solving strategies.

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Köhler’s best known contribution to animal psychology arose from his studies of problem solving in a group of captive chimpanzees . Like other Gestalt psychologists, Köhler was strongly opposed to associationist interpretations of psychological phenomena, and he argued that Thorndike’s analysis of problem solving in terms of associations between stimuli and responses was wholly inadequate. The task he set his chimpanzees was usually one of obtaining a banana that was hanging from the ceiling of their cage or lying out of reach outside the cage. After much fruitless endeavour, the chimpanzees would apparently give up and sit quietly in a corner, but some minutes later they might jump up and solve the problem in an apparently novel manner—for example, by using a bamboo pole to rake in the banana from outside or, if one pole was not long enough, by fitting one pole into another to form a longer rake. Other chimpanzees reached the banana hanging from the ceiling by using a wooden box, or a series of boxes stacked precariously on top of one another, as a makeshift ladder.

Köhler believed that his chimpanzees had shown insight into the nature of the problem and the means necessary to solve it. According to Köhler’s interpretation, the solution depended on a perceptual reorganization of the chimpanzee’s world—seeing a pole as a rake, or a series of boxes as a ladder—rather than on forming any new associations. But subsequent experimental analysis has cast some doubts on Köhler’s claims. The critical observation is that the sorts of solutions that Köhler took as evidence of insight quite clearly depend on relevant prior experience. Chimpanzees will not fit two poles together to form a rake or stack boxes up to form a ladder unless they have had a great deal of prior experience with those objects. This experience may well occur during play, when the young chimpanzee discovers that using a stick can extend the reach of an arm, or that standing on a box can put one within reach of high objects. Thus, what Köhler was studying, without knowing it, was probably the transfer of earlier instrumental conditioning to new situations. As we have already seen, the ability to transfer an old solution to a new stimulus situation is an important one, relevant to a wide range of problem-solving activities. This ability is not at all well understood, but it will not necessarily be greatly illuminated by describing it as insight. Certainly it is not a process unique to the great apes: if the component tasks are sufficiently well-structured, even pigeons can put together two independently learned patterns of behaviour to solve a novel problem.

Combining information from separate sources to reach a new conclusion is one form of reasoning . The paradigm case of reasoning is the solution of syllogisms; for example, when we conclude that Socrates is mortal given the two separate premises that Socrates is a man and that all men are mortal. Employing transitive inference , we can use the premises that Adam is taller than Bertram and that Bertram is taller than Charles to conclude that Adam must be taller than Charles. Reasoning has often been regarded as a uniquely human faculty, one of the few factors, along with the possession of language, that distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom.

But are humans the only animals that can reason? The unsatisfying answer must be that it depends on what is meant by reasoning. In a very general sense, most animals appear perfectly able to arrive at a conclusion based on combining information obtained on two separate occasions. A formal demonstration is provided by an experiment on instrumental conditioning discussed earlier. If rats learn that pressing a lever provides sucrose pellets and later learn that eating sucrose pellets makes them ill, they will subsequently put these two pieces of information together and refrain from pressing the lever. Monkeys and chimpanzees, however, have been trained to solve problems that appear more similar to transitive inference. They are first given discriminative training between pairs of coloured boxes, called, for example, A, B, C, D, E. Confronted with the choice between A and B, they learn that choice of A is rewarded and B is not. When B and C are the alternatives , they learn that B is correct; when C and D are the alternatives, C is correct; and so on. Although choice of A is always rewarded, and that of E never is, the remaining three boxes each are associated equally often with reward and with nonreward. Nonetheless, given a choice between B and D on a test trial, the animals choose B.

Syllogistic and transitive inference are not the only forms of reasoning: humans also reason inductively or by analogy . Indeed, analogical reasoning problems (black is to white as night is to —?) form a staple ingredient of some IQ tests. One chimpanzee, a mature female called Sarah , was tested by David Premack and his colleagues on a series of analogical reasoning tasks. Sarah previously had been extensively trained in solving matching-to-sample discriminations , to the point where she could use two plastic tokens, one meaning same , which she would place between any two objects that were the same, and another meaning different , which she would place between two different objects. For her analogical reasoning tasks, Sarah was shown four objects grouped into two pairs, with each pair symmetrically placed on either side of an empty space. If the relationship between the paired objects on the left was the same as the relationship between those on the right, her task was to place the same token in the space between the two pairs. Thus in one series of geometrical analogies , a simple problem would display a blue circle and a red circle on the left and a blue triangle and a red triangle on the right; the correct answer, of course, was same . But Sarah was equally correct on more complex problems, even when the relationships in question were functional rather than simply perceptual. For example, she correctly answered same when the two objects on the left were a tin can and a can opener and the two on the right a padlock and a key.

Solution of analogies requires one to see that the relationship between one pair of items (whether they are words, diagrams, pictures, or objects) is the same as the relationship between a different pair of items. If simple matching-to-sample requires animals to see that one comparison stimulus is the same as the sample and another is different, solving analogies requires them to match relationships between stimuli. The difficulties encountered in training pigeons to generalize simple matching-to-sample discriminations does not encourage one to believe that they would find analogies very easy.

The ability to speak was regarded by Descartes as the single most important distinction between humans and other animals , and many modern linguists, most notably Noam Chomsky , have agreed that language is a uniquely human characteristic. Once again, of course, there are problems of definition. Animals of many species undoubtedly communicate with one another. Honeybees communicate the direction and distance of a new source of nectar; a male songbird informs rival males of the location of his territory’s boundaries and lets females know of the presence of a territory-owning potential mate; vervet monkeys give different calls to signal to other members of the troop the presence of a snake, a leopard, or a bird of prey . None of these naturally occurring examples of communication, however, contains all of the most salient features of human language. In human language, the relationship between a word and its referent is a purely arbitrary and conventional one, which must be learned by anyone wishing to speak that language; many words, of course, have no obvious referent at all. Moreover, language can be used flexibly and innovatively to talk about situations that have never yet arisen in the speaker’s experience—or indeed, about situations that never could arise. Finally, the same words in a different order may mean something quite different, and the rules of syntax that dictate this change of meaning are general ones applying to an indefinite number of other sequences of words in the language.

During the first half of the 20th century, several psychologists bravely attempted to teach human language to chimpanzees. They were uniformly unsuccessful, and it is now known that the structure of the ape’s vocal tract differs in critical ways from that of a human, thus dooming these attempts to failure. Since then, however, several groups of investigators have employed the idea of teaching a nonvocal language to apes. Some have used a gestural sign language widely used by the deaf to communicate with one another; others have used plastic tokens that stand for words; still others have taught chimpanzees to press symbols on a keyboard. All have had significant success, and several apes have acquired what appears to be a vocabulary of several dozen, and in some cases 100 or 200, “words.”

Washoe , a female chimpanzee trained by Beatrice and Allan Gardner, learned to use well over 150 signs. Some apparently were used as nouns, standing for people and objects in her daily life, such as the names of her trainers, various kinds of food and drink, clothes, dolls, etc. Others she used as requests, such as please, hurry , and more ; and yet others as verbs, such as come, go, tickle , and so on. Sarah , the chimpanzee trained by Premack to use plastic tokens as words, also apparently learned to use tokens for nouns, verbs ( give, take, put ), adjectives ( red, round, large ), and prepositions ( in, under ). But do these signs or tokens really function as words? Does the ape using them, or obeying instructions from a trainer who uses them, really understand their meaning? Or is the ape simply performing various arbitrary instrumental responses in the presence of particular stimuli because she had previously been rewarded for doing so?

There can be little doubt that chimpanzees do have some understanding of what their “words” refer to. Sarah responded appropriately with her token for red if asked the question “What colour of apple?” both when an actual red apple was shown as part of the question and when only the token for an apple (which happened to be a blue triangle) was presented. To Sarah, the blue triangle surely stood for, or was associated with, the red apple. In another study, after two chimpanzees had been taught the meaning of a number of symbols for different kinds of food and different tools, they were able not only to fetch the appropriate but absent object when requested to do so, but they could also sort the symbols into two groups, one for foods and one for tools. In another series of studies, a pygmy chimpanzee named Kanzi demonstrated remarkable linguistic abilities. Unlike other apes, he learned to communicate using keyboard symbols without undergoing long training sessions involving food rewards. Even more impressive, he demonstrated an understanding of spoken English words under rigorous testing conditions in which gestural clues from his trainers were eliminated.

As noted above, human language is more than a large number of unrelated words: in accordance with certain implicitly understood syntactic rules, humans combine words to form sentences that communicate a more or less complex meaning to a listener. Can apes understand or use sentences? Undoubtedly they can put together several gestures or tokens in a row. A chimpanzee named Lana, who was trained to press symbols on a keyboard, could type out “Please machine give Lana drink”; Washoe and other chimpanzees trained in gestural sign language frequently produced strings of gestures such as “You me go out,” “Roger tickle Washoe,” and so on. Skeptical critics, however, have raised doubts about the significance of these strings of signs and symbols. They have pointed out, for example, that when Lana pressed a series of coloured symbols on her keyboard, it was humans who interpreted her actions as the production of a sentence meaning “Please machine give Lana drink.” Might it not be equally reasonable to say that she learned to perform an arbitrary sequence of responses in order to obtain a drink? Pigeons can be trained to press four coloured keys—red, white, yellow, and green—in a particular order to obtain food. Psychologists do not feel any temptation to interpret this behaviour as the production of a sentence. What is it about Lana’s behaviour that requires this richer interpretation?

In the case of apes trained to use sign language, two other doubts have been raised. First, there is some reason to believe that a disappointingly high proportion of the apes’ gestures may be direct imitations of gestures recently executed by their trainers. Second, a sequence of gestures interpreted as a single sentence is often just as readily interpreted as a number of independent gestures, each prompted, in turn, by a gesture from the trainer. Both these conclusions are based on careful examinations of video recordings of interactions between trainers and apes. Whether they will turn out to be generally true remains an open, and heatedly debated, question.

Without any explicit training, apes have nevertheless learned to produce strings of two or three signs in certain preferred orders: “more drink” or “give me,” for example, rather than “drink more” or “me give.” Do the animals understand that a string of signs in one order means something different from the same signs in a different order? The following anecdote is suggestive. A chimpanzee called Lucy was accustomed to instructing her trainer, Roger Fouts, by gesturing “Roger tickle Lucy.” One day, instead of complying with this request, Fouts signed back “No, Lucy tickle Roger.” Although at first nonplussed, after several similar exchanges Lucy eventually did as asked. A simple instance of this sort proves little or nothing, but it may suggest what is needed—namely, that Lucy should understand that changing the order of a set of signs alters their meaning in certain predictable ways. She must generalize the rule that the relationship between the meanings of the signs A-B-C and C-B-A (the same signs in reverse order) is similar to the relationship between the meanings of certain other triplets of signs in her vocabulary when their order is reversed.

The research on language in apes forcefully illustrates a conflict, or tension , that is common to many other areas of research on learning in animals. If the investigators are interested in language and communication, they can attempt to communicate as naturally and informally as possible with their apes. This approach involves treating an ape as a fellow social being, with whom one plays and interacts as far as possible as one would with a human child; it also, almost inevitably, results in a style of research where it is exceptionally difficult to control precisely the cues that the ape may be using and even hard to avoid an overly rich, anthropomorphic interpretation of the ape’s behaviour. If, on the other hand, the researchers are interested in rigorous experimental control and economical interpretation of the processes underlying the ape’s performances, they are likely to set the ape formal problems to solve, with rewards for correct responses and no rewards for errors. But such an approach, however scientific it may seem, must run the risk of missing the point. This is not language; the investigators are not communicating with the ape in the way they would communicate with a child. The very nature of the experimental problems ensures that the ape will not use its language in the way that a child does: to communicate shared interests, to attract a parent’s attention to what the child has seen or is doing, to comment on a matter of concern to both.

There is no resolution to this conflict, for both approaches have their virtues as well as their dangers, and both are therefore necessary. In just the same way, the study of a rat pressing a lever in a Skinner box or of a dog salivating to the ticking of a metronome seems to many critics a sterile and narrow approach to animal learning—one that simply misses the point that, if the ability to learn or profit from experience has evolved by natural selection , it must have done so in particular settings or environments because it paid the learner to learn something. It would be foolish to deny this obvious truism: of course it pays animals to learn. Indeed, it may pay them to learn quite particular things in specific situations, and different groups of animals may be particularly adapted to learning rather different things in similar situations. None of this should be forgotten, and the study of such questions requires the scientist to forsake the laboratory for the real world, where animals live and struggle to survive. But few sciences can afford to miss the opportunity to manipulate and experiment under laboratory conditions where this is possible, and none can afford to forget the benefits of precise observation under controlled conditions.

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Problem solving in animals: proposal for an ontogenetic perspective.

Simple Summary

1. introduction, 2. factors affecting the development of problem solving, 2.1. instrinic factors, 2.1.1. direct genetic effects, 2.1.2. indirect genetic effects, 2.1.3. neuroendocrine effects—brain morphology, 2.1.4. neuroendocrine effects—hormones, 2.2. extrinsic factors, 2.2.1. physical environmental factors, 2.2.2. social environmental factors, 3. interacting factors that influence the development of problem solving, 3.1. gene × environment interactions, 3.2. neuroendocrine × environment interactions, 3.3. age effects, 3.4. learning and experience, 3.5. behavioural flexibility and personality, 4. forgotten components limiting our understanding of problem solving and its development, 5. an individual-centric focus can be beneficial, 6. conclusions, author contributions, acknowledgments, conflicts of interest.

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Rowell, M.K.; Pillay, N.; Rymer, T.L. Problem Solving in Animals: Proposal for an Ontogenetic Perspective. Animals 2021 , 11 , 866. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11030866

Rowell MK, Pillay N, Rymer TL. Problem Solving in Animals: Proposal for an Ontogenetic Perspective. Animals . 2021; 11(3):866. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11030866

Rowell, Misha K., Neville Pillay, and Tasmin L. Rymer. 2021. "Problem Solving in Animals: Proposal for an Ontogenetic Perspective" Animals 11, no. 3: 866. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11030866

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Tool Use and Problem Solving in Animals

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Associative learning ; Insight ; Instrumentation ; Thinking ; Tool behavior ; Trial-and-error learning

Problem Solving: Acquisition of knowledge or behavior to overcome an obstacle(s) to obtain some desired state or commodity, or to overcome an obstacle(s) to avoid or escape some aversive state or agent. Insightful problem solving is the sudden appearance of a correct solution to a complex problem, after a period of nonproblem-directed activity, which in turn follows a period of incorrect responding, and is often said to involve cognitive reorganization and causal understanding of problem elements.

Tool Use: The external employment of an unattached or manipulable attached environmental object (the tool); to purposively alter the form, position, or condition of another object, another organism, or the user itself; when the user holds or directly manipulates the tool during or prior to use; and when the user is responsible for the proper and effective orientation of the...

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Beck, B. B. (1980). Animal tool behavior: The use and manufacture of tools by animals . New York: Garland.

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Davidson, J. E., & Sternberg, R. J. (2003). The psychology of problem solving . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Köhler, W. (1925). The mentality of apes . London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Tomasello, M. (1999). The cultural origins of human cognition . Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Shumaker, R., Walkup, K., & Beck, B. (2011). Animal tool behavior; The use and manufacture of tools by animals, (2nd ed. ). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Visalberghi, E., & Limongelli, L. (1994). Lack of comprehension of cause-effect relations in tool-using capuchin monkeys ( Cebus apella ). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 108 (1), 15–22.

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Beck, B.B., Walkup, K., Shumaker, R. (2012). Tool Use and Problem Solving in Animals. In: Seel, N.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_973

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Problem Solving in Animals: Proposal for an Ontogenetic Perspective

Misha k. rowell.

1 College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, P. O. Box 6811, Cairns, Queensland 4870, Australia; [email protected]

2 Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Sciences, James Cook University, P. O. Box 6811, Cairns, Queensland 4870, Australia

Neville Pillay

3 School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa; [email protected]

Tasmin L. Rymer

Simple summary.

Animals must be able to solve problems to access food and avoid predators. Problem solving is not a complicated process, often relying only on animals exploring their surroundings, and being able to learn and remember information. However, not all species, populations, or even individuals, can solve problems, or can solve problems in the same way. Differences in problem-solving ability could be due to differences in how animals develop and grow, including differences in their genetics, hormones, age, and/or environmental conditions. Here, we consider how an animal’s problem-solving ability could be impacted by its development, and what future work needs to be done to understand the development of problem solving. We argue that, considering how many different factors are involved, focusing on individual animals, and individual variation, is the best way to study the development of problem solving.

Problem solving, the act of overcoming an obstacle to obtain an incentive, has been studied in a wide variety of taxa, and is often based on simple strategies such as trial-and-error learning, instead of higher-order cognitive processes, such as insight. There are large variations in problem solving abilities between species, populations and individuals, and this variation could arise due to differences in development, and other intrinsic (genetic, neuroendocrine and aging) and extrinsic (environmental) factors. However, experimental studies investigating the ontogeny of problem solving are lacking. Here, we provide a comprehensive review of problem solving from an ontogenetic perspective. The focus is to highlight aspects of problem solving that have been overlooked in the current literature, and highlight why developmental influences of problem-solving ability are particularly important avenues for future investigation. We argue that the ultimate outcome of solving a problem is underpinned by interacting cognitive, physiological and behavioural components, all of which are affected by ontogenetic factors. We emphasise that, due to the large number of confounding ontogenetic influences, an individual-centric approach is important for a full understanding of the development of problem solving.

1. Introduction

Increasing concerns over human-induced rapid environmental change has led to a corresponding increase in interest in understanding how animals will cope with these challenges. Rapid and unpredictable changes may have significant effects on survival and coping ability [ 1 ]. In order to survive, animals need to gain information about the environment (e.g., relative predation risk and food availability). While this might sometimes be easily attained, such as directly observing fruit on a tree, obtaining resources or avoiding predation may require an ability to solve a problem, such as obtaining fruit that is out of reach.

Problem solving has been documented in all major vertebrate taxa, including mammals (e.g., food-baited puzzles in various mammalian carnivores, [ 2 ]), birds (e.g., food-baited puzzles given to multiple parrot and corvid species [ 3 , 4 ]), reptiles (e.g., multiple species of monitor lizards Varanus spp. are capable of solving food-baited puzzle boxes, [ 5 ]), amphibians (e.g., detour task, where the animal had to move around an obstacle in brilliant-thighed poison frogs Allobates femoralis , [ 6 ]), fishes (e.g., foraging innovation in guppies Poecilia reticulata , [ 7 ]), and some invertebrates (e.g., overcoming a physical barrier in leaf-cutting ants Atta colombica [ 8 ]).

Currently, there is no universally accepted definition of problem solving ( Table 1 ). From our literature search (see below), most definitions consider mechanical (i.e., movements required to solve problems), morphological (i.e., physical structure to manipulate objects to solve a problem) and/or cognitive (i.e., assessing, learning, storing information about problem) components as part of problem-solving ability. We consider problem solving to be the ability of an individual to integrate the information it has gained (knowledge or behaviour) to move itself, or manipulate an object, to overcome a barrier, negative state or agent, and access a desired goal or incentive, such as a resource [ 9 , 10 ]. Most reports of problem solving are based on experimental evidence where animals are presented with a feeding motivation task (e.g., a puzzle box or detour task), in which an animal manipulates an object, or moves itself around the object, to access the food. Occasionally, animals are experimentally presented with an obstacle blocking access to a location, and the animal needs to move the obstacle to access a refuge or their nest. These solutions can be achieved by innovation (the use of a new behaviour, or existing behaviour in a new context [ 11 ]) and/or by refining behaviour over repeated sessions with the stimulus (e.g., trial-and-error learning). Our literature search has also demonstrated that problem solving is sometimes assessed simply as a dichotomous skill, in which an animal either can or cannot solve a problem, but other studies have focused on how animals vary in the way they solve problems, and how efficiently they solve problems. Our definition encompasses all of these aspects.

Definitions of problem solving and innovation quoted from the literature and associated references. We highlight the drivers (i.e., whether the ability to problem solve is linked to internal (e.g., physiology, cognition) or external (e.g., environmental) factors) and the properties of the animal (mechanical/morphological abilities or cognitive abilities) that authors attribute to problem solving.

Successful problem solving has been theorised to be important for survival, as it allows animals to adjust to changing environmental conditions [ 24 ] and even invade new environments (e.g., bird species introduced to New Zealand, [ 25 ]), or to cope with harsh or extreme conditions [ 26 ]. However, the ability of animals to solve problems [ 27 ], and the specific strategy/manoeuvre that they use to solve problems [ 28 ], is highly variable, and this variation can be observed at all taxonomic levels, including between families (e.g., Columbida vs. Icteridae, [ 29 ]), genera (e.g., Molothrus vs. Quiscalus [ 30 ]), and species (jaguar Panthera onca vs. Amur tiger P. tigris , [ 2 ]). It is even possible that problem solving is phylogenetically conserved, with some groups having a greater potential to solve problems than others [ 31 ]. However, variation in problem-solving ability also occurs within species, including between populations (e.g., house finches Haemorhous mexicanus given extractive foraging tasks [ 32 ]), and individuals (e.g., meerkats Suricata suricatta given food-baited puzzle boxes [ 27 ]). Likely causes of this variation are the conditions that arise during an individual’s development. This variation could then allow problem-solving ability to be acted upon by natural selection [ 33 ], possibly impacting individual fitness. Therefore, understanding the influence of developmental factors on problem-solving ability is important.

An individual’s behaviour, physiology and morphology may change as it grows and ages due to developmental changes in life history traits [ 34 , 35 ]. Furthermore, interactions and experiences with other individuals and the immediate environment further feedback into these systems [ 36 ]. These intrinsic and extrinsic factors, either independently or synergistically, influence the individual’s ability to cope with, and respond to, environmental challenges [ 37 ], although their outcomes are likely difficult to predict because of myriad interacting factors.

Although aspects of behaviour, physiology and cognition have been studied in an ontogenetic context [ 38 , 39 ], little is currently known about how problem-solving abilities develop and change as individuals grow and age. Developmental differences between individuals could fine tune or modulate the ability to solve problems, causing individual variation in this ability. Importantly, this inter-individual variation in problem solving could have fitness consequences by influencing survival and/or reproductive success. However, untangling the relative influence of intrinsic (genetic, neuroendocrine and aging) and extrinsic (environmental) factors on the development of problem solving is challenging [ 40 , 41 ]. We propose that an integrated approach, focusing on the development of problem solving, is needed to fully appreciate the ability and propensity of animals to solve novel problems. Our aim was to review the literature on problem solving to document and then construct the links between intrinsic and extrinsic factors that influence the development of problem-solving.

We therefore conducted a literature search using Google Scholar and the Web of Science database. We included the general search terms “problem solving” “innovation” and “animal” in all searches and excluded all articles with the word “human”. This produced 6100 hits. We further refined the search by including the following as specific terms in individual searches: “development”, “ontogeny”, “heritability”, “personality”, “cognition”, “learning”, “experience”, “age”, “hormone”, “brain”, and “environment”. Articles that were repeated in subsequent searches were ignored. Articles were excluded if: (1) the researchers trained the animals to solve the problem before testing (and, therefore, tested memory rather than natural problem-solving ability); (2) the authors referred to a type of problem solving that did not meet our definition (e.g., relational problems where animals needed to extract and transfer rules between tests); and/or (3) development of problem solving was not investigated. If two papers found similar results (e.g., neophobia hinders problem solving in a bird species), we only reported on one study to avoid repetition and to reduce the overall number of citations.

Numerous studies have shown that animals can problem solve [ 42 ], and several studies have explored the fitness consequences of problem solving in animals (e.g., [ 10 ]). However, how problem solving develops is an area that has been little explored. In this paper, we first discuss how intrinsic and extrinsic factors influencing the ontogeny of individuals could affect the development of problem-solving ability. We focus on genetic (direct and indirect), neuroendocrine, and environmental (physical and social) factors, as well as age, learning and experience. Given the relative paucity of empirical studies investigating the development of problem solving in general (42 publications found of seven developmental factors), we demonstrate first how these factors impact other traits in order to create a conceptual framework for addressing problem solving. We acknowledge that limited information currently makes it challenging to separate developmental factors underlying problem-solving ability from other causal mechanisms (e.g., hormones, genetic effects). We then explore how interactions between intrinsic and extrinsic factors during an individual’s development could influence problem solving indirectly. Specifically, we focus on how personality (individual differences in behaviour) and behavioural flexibility (ability to change behaviour in response to environmental cues) contribute to differences in problem-solving ability. Finally, we briefly discuss aspects that have been overlooked in studies investigating the development of problem solving, providing hypotheses for future testing. Throughout this paper, we advocate for an individual-centric approach to study the ontogeny of problem solving, where individual variation in solving ability is considered, rather than only using simple population-level averages. Future studies should be tailored to focus on individual differences within and between tests, as well as consider a longitudinal approach to track how individuals change over their lifetimes. Analyses of these experiments should then include individual data points as a measure of individual ability and variation, and should not exclude outliers because these account for the species- or population-level variation.

2. Factors Affecting the Development of Problem Solving

Problem solving is influenced by direct [ 43 ] and indirect (epigenetic and transgenerational) genetic [ 44 ], and neuroendocrine [ 45 ] factors ( Figure 1 ). Furthermore, extrinsic factors, including both the physical and social environments, can also affect the development of problem solving ( Figure 1 ). However, the development, and ultimately expression, of problem solving is more likely impacted by complex interactions between these intrinsic and extrinsic factors ( Figure 1 ), and is also likely to change as the animal ages and experiences (i.e., learns) new situations (e.g., ravens Corvus corax [ 28 ]; North Island robins Petroica longipes , [ 46 ]). Untangling these effects is likely to be challenging.

Intrinsic (genetic, neuroendocrine, and aging), extrinsic (environment) and acquired (learning and experience) factors influencing an individual’s development directly (solid arrows) or indirectly (dashed arrows). Arrow heads indicate direction of influence.

2.1. Instrinic Factors

2.1.1. direct genetic effects.

Heritable genetic effects influence the development of phenotypic traits. For example, physiological stress (barn swallows Hirudo rustica , [ 47 ]), parental care (African striped mice Rhabdomys pumilio [ 48 ]), exploratory behaviour (great tits Parus major [ 49 ]), multiple aspects of cognition in chimpanzees Pan troglodytes [ 50 ], learning in hens Gallus gallus domesticus [ 51 ] and spatial learning ability (C57BL/6Ibg and DBA/2Ibg mice Mus musculus [ 52 ]) all have a heritable component (but see [ 53 ]).

Heritable genetic effects may also affect the development of problem solving ( Figure 1 ), although this has received little attention in the literature. Elliot and Scott [ 43 ] found that different dog Canis lupus familiaris breeds solved a complex barrier problem in different ways, and Audet et al. [ 54 ] showed that an innovative species of Darwin’s finches Loxigilla barbadensis had higher glutamate receptor expression (correlated with synaptic plasticity) than a closely related, poorly innovative species Tiaris bicolor . Tolman [ 55 ] and Heron [ 56 ] also indicated underlying genetic effects on maze-learning ability in rats, although the ability to learn a maze may not necessarily imply an ability to solve a problem (see [ 57 ]). In contrast, Quinn et al. [ 58 ] and Bókony et al. [ 59 ] found little measurable heritability of innovative problem-solving performance in great tits in a food-baited puzzle box and an obstacle-removal task, respectively. These studies suggest that the genetic architecture underlying problem solving may provide a rich area for future research.

2.1.2. Indirect Genetic Effects

Indirect genetic factors, specifically epigenetic and transgenerational effects, influence how genes are read (e.g., DNA methylation, [ 60 ]) or expressed (e.g., hormones activating genes during sexual maturation, [ 61 ]) without altering the underlying DNA. These epigenetic changes are underpinned by biochemical mechanisms that affect how easily the DNA can be transcribed [ 62 ], subsequently influencing the development of different systems. For example, the activation of thyroid receptor genes (TRα and β) in the cerebellum of 0–19 day old chicks causes hormone-dependent neuron growth and development [ 63 ]. No studies to date have explored the effects of epigenetic factors on the development of problem solving, although this relationship can be postulated ( Figure 1 ), since epigenetic factors influence the development of behaviour (e.g., maternal care, [ 64 ]), and cognition (e.g., memory, [ 44 ]). Memory is an important component of problem solving [ 65 ]. Consequently, two possible routes could be inhibited via transcriptional silencing of the memory suppressor gene protein phosphatase 1 (PP1), and demethylation and transcriptional activation of the synaptic plasticity gene reelin, both of which enhance long-term potentiation. These could lead to increased memory formation (e.g., in male Sprague Dawley rats Rattus norvegicus domesticus , [ 44 ]).

Transgenerational epigenetic effects can also influence development. These effects result from parental or grandparental responses to prevailing environmental conditions, which influence how offspring and grand offspring ultimately respond to their own environment [ 66 ]. For example, embryonic exposure to the endocrine disruptor vinclozilin in female Sprague Dawley rats resulted in epigenetic reprogramming of hippocampal and amygdala genes for at least three generations, with the resulting F3 males showing decreased, and F3 females showing increased, anxiety-like behaviour, as adults [ 67 ]. An interesting avenue for research into transgenerational effects on the development of problem solving is the NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) receptor/cAMP (cyclic adenosine monophosphate)/p38 MAP kinase (P38 mitogen-activated protein kinases) signalling cascade. Exposure of newly weaned Ras-GRF1 (growth regulating factor) knockout mice to an enriched environment enables this latent signalling pathway, rescuing defective long-term potentiation and learning ability [ 68 ]. These epigenetic effects may therefore influence problem-solving ability indirectly by affecting the individual’s learning ability, or possibly directly by affecting the development of particular brain regions.

2.1.3. Neuroendocrine Effects—Brain Morphology

Many developmental processes are driven by neuroendocrine factors that are, themselves, impacted by other developmental processes [ 63 ]. While the development of many of the brain’s circuits (e.g., those located near the sensory or motor periphery), are governed by innate mechanisms [ 69 ], other parts (e.g., the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala and the cerebellar cortex [ 70 ]; the CA1 region of the mammalian hippocampus [ 71 ]; the avian hippocampus [ 72 ]) are considerably more plastic and more responsive to external stimuli, maintaining a high degree of neural plasticity throughout life. As these brain regions can be important for the expression of particular behaviours (e.g., the cerebellum is necessary for tool use, [ 73 ]), this plasticity has particular relevance for problem solving. For example, North American bird species with relatively larger forebrains were more likely to innovate when foraging than bird species with smaller forebrains [ 74 ] and New Caledonian crows Corvus moneduloides , which are renowned for their tool use and problem-solving abilities, had relatively larger brains than other bird species [ 75 ]. Similarly, C57BL/6J laboratory mice that received lesions to the hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex initially showed impairments in solving a puzzle box task, although the mice ultimately solved the task over time, indicating the importance of experience and learning with repeated presentation of the task [ 76 ].

2.1.4. Neuroendocrine Effects—Hormones

The brain is also the central control of endocrine responses that can influence an individual’s development ( Figure 1 ). For example, the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis activates gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), which stimulates the pituitary to produce luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH, [ 77 ]). These hormones regulate the production of steroid hormones (testosterone and oestrogen) via the gonads [ 78 ], stimulating sexual maturity [ 79 ]. Fluctuations in steroids also influence cognitive function [ 80 , 81 ]. For example, female rats injected neonatally with testosterone show heightened learning of a Lashley III maze (contains start box, maze, and goal box; used to test learning and memory) as adults compared to non-injected females, although the underlying impacts on neural development or neuroendocrine processes were not discussed [ 82 ].

Endocrine responses can also feedback to brain morphology ( Figure 1 ), affecting neural structure and function, which can impact behaviour, cognition, and development. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis regulates the secretion of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which in turn regulates the secretion of glucocorticoid stress hormones (e.g., corticosterone, [ 83 ]) from the adrenal glands [ 84 ]. Short-term exposure to corticosterone can improve learning, since it allows important associations to be formed, such as between threat and a behavioural response [ 85 ]. However, prolonged increased corticosterone concentrations (chronic physiological stress) reduce hippocampal neuron survival [ 86 ], which interferes with learning [ 87 , 88 ], memory retrieval [ 89 ] and problem solving. For example, house sparrows Passer domesticus with prolonged elevated corticosterone concentrations were less efficient problem solvers of puzzle boxes than birds with lower corticosterone concentrations, as stress impairs working memory and cognitive capacity [ 45 ]. Prolonged physiological stress can also cause detrimental developmental changes in morphology (e.g., chickens [ 90 , 91 ]) and behaviour (e.g., rats [ 83 ]).

In contrast to stress hormones, the mesolimbic dopaminergic system [ 92 ], which consists of the substantia nigra and ventral tegmental region [ 93 ], regulates the production of dopamine, a hormone associated with motivation and reward-seeking [ 94 ]. Motivation is a physiological process [ 94 ] that increases persistence and thereby increases the likelihood of successfully solving a problem [ 95 ]. Persistence is important for problem solving in foraging tasks in house sparrows [ 96 ], common pheasants Phasianus spp . [ 97 ] and Indian mynas Acridotheres tristis [ 98 ], and in puzzle box tasks in spotted hyenas Crocuta crocuta and lions P. leo [ 99 ]. Changes to dopamine production can also negatively impact the development of sensorimotor integration [ 100 ], disrupting approach, seeking and investigatory behaviours [ 101 ] and acquisition of spatial discrimination [ 102 ]. Disruption to dopamine production, or other circuits, may also lead to an individual persisting with an inadequate strategy if the individual lacks inhibitory control [ 103 ] and cannot recognise when to terminate the behaviour [ 104 ]. Disruptions to these behaviours and cognitive functioning therefore impact foraging and exploratory behaviours [ 87 , 104 ], which can lead to undernutrition, and consequent negative impacts on growth and physical, behavioural, and cognitive development [ 105 ].

Other hormones have also been implicated in the expression of problem solving. For example, both norepinephrine and serotonin likely impact problem solving, since they are related to cognitive flexibility (e.g., rhesus macaques Macaca mulatta [ 106 , 107 ]), with serotonin activating, and norepinephrine deactivating, the prefrontal cortex [ 108 ]. However, although some studies have investigated the role of these hormones in problem solving, these relationships are not clearly defined. For example, dietary deficiency in n-3 fatty acids during development increased serotonin receptor density and reduced dopamine receptor binding in the frontal cortex of rats, and it also altered dopamine metabolism [ 109 , 110 ]. This dietary n-3 fatty acid deficiency also impaired problem solving in a delayed matching-to-place task in the Morris water maze [ 111 ]. However, whether problem-solving ability was impacted specifically by down-regulation of dopamine receptor binding, or up-regulation of serotonin receptor binding, is unclear.

2.2. Extrinsic Factors

2.2.1. physical environmental factors.

The physical environment varies in structural complexity and quality across both spatial and temporal scales [ 112 ]. Throughout its lifetime, an individual will experience daily and/or seasonal variation in environmental conditions (e.g., rainfall, temperature, food availability, [ 113 ]), and/or when it disperses [ 114 ], migrates [ 115 ] or travels into different areas. This variability changes the likelihood of an individual encountering positive (e.g., food [ 116 ]) or negative (e.g., predator [ 117 ]) stimuli, consequently influencing its development ( Figure 1 ). For example, a higher density and abundance of aquatic snails results in the development of larger pharyngeal jaw muscles and stronger bones in predatory pumpkinseed sunfish Lepomis gibbosus [ 111 ].

Some studies have investigated the interplay between physical environmental conditions and problem-solving ability. Favourable environmental conditions can reduce stress [ 118 ], promote active and exploratory behaviours [ 119 ] and enhance cognition [ 120 ], but harsh conditions may promote problem solving. For example, mountain chickadees Poecile gambeli living in harsher high elevation montane habitats with longer winters solved novel foraging problems significantly faster than chickadees living at lower elevations, most likely because finding food in these habitats was more challenging, and survival depends on plastic responses to these challenges [ 26 ]. However, this effect on food-motivated problem-solving ability was not seen in great tits experiencing similar harsh conditions [ 40 ], suggesting that species-dependent developmental factors may be constrained by environmental effects. Urban environments may also promote the development of problem solving since they are expected to contain a higher frequency of novel problems for animals to solve. For example, house sparrows [ 121 ] and house finches [ 32 ] in urban environments were more adept food-motivated problem solvers than birds from rural areas, particularly when the problem was difficult to solve [ 96 ].

2.2.2. Social Environmental Factors

The social environment also changes throughout an individual’s lifetime, and has the capacity to influence its development ( Figure 1 ). Any positive (e.g., offspring suckling from mothers) or negative interactions (e.g., siblings fighting over food) between individuals can be considered social, and can vary over time scales (e.g., from daily interactions between individuals in a group, to shorter interactions between parents and offspring or mating partners [ 122 ]).

For mammals, females are constrained to care for their offspring through pregnancy and suckling [ 123 ]. Consequently, the mother’s physiological state and access to resources can impact offspring embryonic development prenatally through direct transfer of maternal hormones or nutrients across the placenta [ 124 ]. For example, pregnant female Sprague Dawley rats exposed to unpredictable, variable stress (e.g., restraint, food restriction) during the final week of gestation produced anxious daughters and sons with impaired cognitive function (contextual memory [ 125 ]). Furthermore, maternal care during postnatal development [ 64 ], particularly the mother’s diet quality, can also influence development. For example, protein deficiency in African striped mouse Rhabdomys dilectus chakae mothers during early postnatal development of offspring resulted in these offspring showing increased anxiety, decreased novel object recognition and increased aggression as adults compared to mice raised by mothers that did not experience nutrient deficiency [ 126 ]. Thus, detrimental developmental effects such as these may go on to impede offspring problem solving abilities.

For some species, a key developmental milestone is dispersal. Interactions with other conspecifics during this phase are often driven by dramatic developmental changes often associated with reproduction [ 114 ]. For example, male vervet monkeys Chlorocebus pygerythrus leave their natal group at sexual maturity and attempt to attain dominance in another group [ 127 ], which could lead to increased access to food resources that can be channeled further into growth and development. This process of leaving the natal territory, and any social interactions during this time, can feedback to the individual to further affect its development. For example, in many species (e.g., brown rats), dispersing juveniles undergo a period of heightened exploration and learning, allowing them to rapidly adjust to new environmental conditions [ 128 ]. However, it is unknown how dispersal and other associated events impact an individual’s problem-solving abilities.

Problem solving is most often studied in social animals [ 122 ], possibly because they are more conspicuous than solitary species. In some species, such as European starlings Sturnus vulgaris with a foraging task [ 129 ], coyotes Canis latrans with a puzzle box task [ 130 ] and rhesus macaques in an associative learning task [ 131 ], dominant individuals are better learners and problem solvers. Similarly, the presence of an alpha individual impedes problem solving success in subordinate spotted hyenas presented with a puzzle box [ 132 ] and ravens in a string-pulling task [ 28 ] due to direct interference and increased aggression from the dominant. However, in other species, such as blue tits Cyanistes caeruleus [ 133 ], adult meerkats [ 27 ] and chimpanzees [ 134 ], subdominants tend to be better solvers of puzzle boxes, since their lower competitive ability makes them more reliant on alternative methods for accessing resources [ 26 ]. Group size may also influence problem solving, although results are equivocal. For example, larger groups of house sparrows [ 121 ] and Australian magpies Gymnorhina tibicen [ 135 ] in extractive foraging tasks and zebra fish Danio rerio in an avoidance task [ 136 ] were better problem solvers than individuals in small groups, possibly because larger groups contained more reliable demonstrators. However, orange-winged amazons Amazona amazonica had similar solving success in a string-pulling task when tested in groups or in isolation [ 137 ]. Social carnivore species, such as banded mongoose Mungos mungo , were also less successful problem solvers of a puzzle box compared to solitary species, such as black bears Ursus americanus and wolverines Gulo gulo , suggesting that relative brain size may be more important for cognitive abilities than social environment [ 33 ].

Problem solving studies in solitary species are generally lacking, making it difficult to assess how social interactions may impact the development of problem solving in these species. However, it is evident that individual animals can solve problems in the absence of conspecifics. For example, black-throated monitor lizards V. albigularis albigularis [ 138 ], eastern grey squirrels Sciurus carolinensis [ 139 ], and orangutans Pongo pygmaeus [ 140 ] can individually solve puzzle boxes using flexible behaviours (i.e., switching strategies when necessary), persistence and learning. Similarly, North Island robins [ 46 ] and brilliant-thighed poison frogs [ 8 ] can solve detour problem tasks when tested in their home territories. How solitary species solve problems in the presence of conspecifics, however, is an area for future investigation.

3. Interacting Factors that Influence the Development of Problem Solving

3.1. gene × environment interactions.

Genotype × environment interactions can also have a profound effect on the development of individuals ( Figure 1 ). For example, the gene monoamine oxidase A ( MAOA ) encodes for an enzyme that impacts serotonergic activity in the central nervous system, leading to increased impulsivity and anxiety [ 141 ]. Stressful life events, or changes in social structure or status can alter the expression of this gene, leading to developmental changes during adulthood. For example, rhesus macaques raised in the absence of their parents showed increased aggression due to low MAOA enzymatic activity [ 142 ].

Although genotype × physical environment interactions have not been explored in the context of problem solving, environmental enrichment in captive bi-transgenic CK-p25 Tg laboratory mice is associated with the activation of plasticity genes, inducing chromatin modification via histone acetylation and methylation of histones 3 and 4 in the hippocampus and cortex, leading to increased numbers of dendrites and synapses [ 143 ]. This cascade of genetic and neuroendocrine processes functions to help restore learning and memory [ 143 ], both of which are important for problem solving [ 65 , 95 ].

Parents may also alter the environment (e.g., amount of parental care or food) their offspring experience [ 66 ], which could be a consequence of genetic variation between mothers [ 144 ] or a result of other factors (e.g., variability in resource availability [ 145 ]). When an offspring’s development is impacted by this nongenetic parental environment, these effects are known as parental effects [ 146 ], which are specific types of indirect genetic effects (IGEs, [ 144 ]). For example, female Long-Evans hooded rats that provided high levels of tactile stimulation (e.g., grooming and nursing [ 64 ]) to their young produced daughters that also displayed higher levels of maternal care to their own offspring [ 147 ], indicating an IGE.

Maternal care also regulates the expression of the hippocampal glucocorticoid receptor gene by changing the acetylation of histones H3-K9 and the methylation of the NGFI-A consensus sequence on the exon 17 promoter [ 148 ]. Young rats that experienced low levels of maternal tactile stimulation showed reductions in hippocampal neuron survival [ 149 ] and decreased hippocampal glucocorticoid receptor mRNA expression [ 148 ], leading to chronic corticosterone release as adults [ 150 ]. Offspring also showed decreased exploratory behaviour [ 151 ] and impairments in spatial learning and memory [ 64 ] and object recognition [ 149 , 152 ] as adults. As for genotype × physical environment interactions, how the social environment × genotype interaction affects problem solving is a promising avenue for future research.

3.2. Neuroendocrine × Environment Interactions

Habitat complexity, resource availability and social complexity can influence development via effects on neuroendocrine systems, which can also result in changes to the social environment that may then feedback to further impact development. For example, nine-spined sticklebacks Pungitius pungitius preferentially shoal together in marine environments with high predation risk and patchy food resources, but prefer to swim alone when these constraints are relaxed in freshwater ponds [ 153 ]. Marine fish with more social interactions had significantly larger olfactory bulbs and optic tecta, parts of the brain associated with sensory perception, compared to solitary fish from freshwater ponds that experienced fewer social interactions [ 154 , 155 ]. Rhesus macaques from larger social groups also had more grey matter and greater neural activity in the mid-superior temporal sulcus and rostral prefrontal cortex than macaques from smaller groups [ 156 ]. Similarly, structurally complex, changing environments improve survival of hippocampal cells and neurons by increasing the level of nerve growth factor in the hippocampus [ 112 ], which increases hippocampal volume [ 83 ], leading to increased neural plasticity [ 157 ] and a greater capacity to adjust to new environmental conditions [ 158 ]. Environmental enrichment has also been shown to enhance long-term potentiation in the hippocampus, which facilitates learning and memory [ 159 ], two important processes for problem solving [ 23 , 95 ]. Environmental enrichment has been associated with increased problem-solving ability in C57/BL6J mice in an obstruction puzzle task [ 160 ] and Labrador retrievers in puzzle box tasks [ 161 ]. This suggests causal links between the environment, the neuroendocrine system, and problem solving which are likely mediated by underlying genotype × environment interactions.

3.3. Age Effects

Separating out the effects of aging and neuroendocrine or genetic effects on development is challenging. Nevertheless, age-specific effects on development, regardless of the underlying mechanisms, are an important consideration.

The nervous system shows age-dependent decreases in neurogenesis and plasticity, particularly in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus [ 162 ], and the subventricular zone of the lateral ventricle [ 163 ], and these age-dependent changes can alter cognitive ability and behaviour (e.g., beagles [ 164 ]). Other neuroendocrine processes also naturally change with age. For example, as brown rats age, the ACTH response increases, glucocorticoid receptor binding capacity in the hippocampus and hypothalamus decreases, corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) mRNA expression decreases in the paraventricular nucleus, and mineralocorticoid mRNA expression in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus is reduced [ 165 ]. These changes result in an associated attenuation of the corticosterone response to novelty [ 164 ], as well as declines in spatial learning and memory [ 166 ].

Depending on the age of the individual, changes to both the physical and social environments also impact development [ 167 ]. When raised in small cages with limited space, juvenile rats showed increased anxiety, and lower activity and exploration, whereas older rats did not [ 167 ]. Similarly, older rats reared in larger groups were more active than juveniles, mostly likely due to increased frequency of social interactions and establishment of their rank within the social hierarchy [ 167 ].

Several studies have shown that juveniles are better problem solvers than adults, although the underlying mechanisms are currently not known. For example, juvenile Chimango caracaras Milvago chimango were more successful at solving a puzzle box task than adults [ 168 ], and juvenile canaries Serinus canaria solved a vertical-string pulling task, whereas adults did not [ 169 ]. Similarly, juvenile Chacma baboons Papio ursinus solved a hidden food task more often than adults [ 170 ], and juvenile kakas N. meridionalis showed higher innovation efficiency than adults across different tasks and contexts [ 171 ]. Juveniles are often prone to higher levels of exploration [ 159 ], and are more playful [ 172 ], than adult animals, allowing juveniles to rapidly gain motor skills [ 172 ]. This could possibly improve problem solving abilities of juveniles despite their lack of experience at solving tasks. However, results are species-specific, as Indian mynas [ 173 ] and spotted hyenas [ 174 ] show no age-specific effects on problem solving in foraging tasks, while adult meerkats [ 27 ] and black-capped chickadees [ 175 ] were better innovators than juveniles in extractive foraging tasks.

3.4. Learning and Experience

As an animal ages, it encounters predators and food resources, and interacts with conspecifics. These experiences provide a rich potential for learning, which is a critical component of problem solving. However, separating out the effects of the experience itself on development from other extrinsic and intrinsic factors, or their interactions, is challenging. Nevertheless, as in aging, an animal’s development can be impacted by its experiences, particularly via learning, suggesting that experience must be considered when attempting to understand how problem solving develops.

To survive, use new resources, or avoid predators, individuals must learn to associate the experience with its significance (e.g., threat of a predator [ 176 , 177 ]). Learning enables animals to acquire information about the state of their environment [ 178 ] and learning through experience allows for adjustments in physiological and behavioural responses [ 176 ]. For example, repeated foot shock in a specific environmental location caused increases in norepinephrine and epinephrine in Sprague Dawley rats, eliciting fear and resulting in rats avoiding that location [ 179 ]. Similarly, guppies decreased their time foraging in the presence of a predatory convict cichlid Cichlasoma nigrofasciatum [ 180 ]. Animals can learn to solve problems in different ways, such as through trial and error (e.g., rooks C. frugilegus across multiple foraging extraction tasks [ 181 ]) or socially through local enhancement (e.g., common marmosets Callithrix jacchus in a foraging extraction task [ 182 ]), social facilitation (e.g., capuchin monkeys Cebus apella in a foraging extraction task [ 183 ]) or copying/imitation (e.g., laboratory rats in an extractive foraging task [ 184 ]). Learning from previous experience is also an important component for successful problem solving. For example, grey squirrels improve their ability to solve a food-baited puzzle box with repeated exposures to the problem [ 23 ]. Similarly, North Island Robins became more efficient problem solvers of new food-extraction tasks with experience [ 46 ].

3.5. Behavioural Flexibility and Personality

Although development is governed by several unifying genetic and physiological mechanisms, and these processes are impacted by age and environmental effects [ 185 ], the development of one individual differs considerably from that of another individual. Some of this variation can be attributed to the behavioural flexibility of each individual [ 29 ] and/or its personality [ 168 ], which also undergo developmental changes over the course of an individual’s lifetime [ 36 ].

Behavioural flexibility is the ability to switch behavioural responses (likely due to cognitive flexibility [ 95 ]) to adjust to new situations or states [ 186 ], and is likely governed by both genetic and non-genetic mechanisms [ 187 ]. The degree of behavioural and cognitive flexibility, and corresponding learning ability, is important for problem solving, as seen in tropical anoles ( Anolis evermanni in an obstruction task [ 188 ]; A. sagrei in a detour task [ 189 ]), spotted hyenas in a puzzle box task [ 174 ], grey squirrels in a food-extraction task [ 139 ] and keas Nestor notabilis in a foraging extraction task [ 190 ]. However, the degree of flexibility varies between species. For example, Indian mynas are more flexible, and are better innovative foraging problem solvers, than noisy miners Manorina melanocephala across a range of tasks [ 173 ]. Importantly, individual differences in behavioural and cognitive flexibility, particularly learning ability, are often attributed to physiological effects occurring during development (e.g., corticosterone exposure in nestling Florida scrub jays Aphelocoma coerulescens [ 191 ]).

An individual’s development and experiences can also affect its personality [ 192 ], defined as consistent individual differences in behaviour shown across contexts and situations, and over time [ 193 ]. Personalities are often measured along different axes (e.g., bold/shy [ 194 ]; proactive/reactive [ 195 ]), and are mediated by hormones [ 196 ]. Although personality itself is influenced by intrinsic (e.g., hunger [ 197 ]) and extrinsic (e.g., environmental quality [ 119 ]) developmental factors, personality can further feedback on an individual’s development through its effects on exploration [ 167 ]. For example, avoidant individuals may be less willing to investigate their environment than exploratory individuals, which reduces their chances of being predated, but also reduces foraging rate, which affects growth, as seen in grey treefrog tadpoles Hyla versicolor [ 198 ].

Personality can also impact problem solving [ 40 ]. Exploratory individuals have higher interaction rates with problems, increasing their likelihood of solving innovative tasks. For example, brushtail possums Trichosurus vulpecula that were exploratory, active and vigilant were more likely to solve an escape-box task during the first trial, and were capable of solving a difficult task, compared to less exploratory, less active and less vigilant individuals [ 199 ]. Similarly, exploratory fawn-footed mosaic-tailed rats Melomys cervinipes were faster problem solvers, and solved more problems, than avoidant individuals when tested with food- and escape-motivated tasks [ 200 ]. Exploratory Carib grackles were also faster learners and more likely to innovate in a foraging-extraction task than avoidant individuals [ 201 ]. However, this relationship is not always clearly defined. For example, both bold and shy chacma baboons improved their solving of a food extraction problem after watching a demonstrator [ 170 ]. Similarly, bold meerkats that approached a puzzle box first were not always the first to solve it [ 27 ], and neophobia did not significantly influence problem-solving ability in Barbary macaques Macaca sylvanus presented with puzzle boxes [ 202 ]. Although relationships between personality, behavioural flexibility and problem solving are not clearly defined, such individual variation should be taken into consideration when investigating developmental effects on problem solving.

4. Forgotten Components Limiting Our Understanding of Problem Solving and Its Development

Problem solving has been considered to rely almost exclusively on complex cognitive processes involving insightful thinking (i.e., just knowing what to do, rather than arriving at it through trial and error learning [ 181 , 203 ]), understanding of functionality [ 204 ] or causal understanding (i.e., being able to understand rules and consequences of actions [ 27 ]). Consequently, complex problem solving is often considered to be a consequence of relative brain size (e.g., birds and primates [ 169 ]). However, there is little evidence that problem solving involves complicated cognitive processes [ 28 ]. For example, introduced black rats R. rattus in Australia have caused extensive damage to macadamia Macadamia sp. orchards [ 205 ]. As rodents are evolutionarily constrained to gnaw due to the unrooted nature of their incisors [ 206 ], gnawing is an effective strategy for accessing novel food resources behind barriers or hard seed coats. To solve the problem of accessing the new food, black rats required only persistence, motivation and the appropriate mechanical apparatus rather than complex cognitive abilities. While each animal’s brain consists of a set of information-processing circuits that have evolved by natural selection to solve particular problems in their environment and increase their reproductive fitness [ 207 ], without the appropriate mechanical apparatus, the animal cannot solve the problem [ 208 ]. The ability to solve particular problems may therefore be species-specific, and morphologically constrained, specifically involving mechanical problem solving, unless animals can overcome these mechanical shortcomings (e.g., by developing tool use [ 28 ]).

Although problem solving has been studied in a wide variety of taxa, studies of the development of problem solving specifically have largely been restricted to birds [ 43 ], laboratory rats and mice [ 73 , 82 , 209 ], dogs [ 44 ], and primates that have been housed in captivity [ 131 ]. This is largely due to difficulties associated with observing free-living individuals [ 210 ] and accounting for their previous experience [ 95 ]. Consequently, studies rarely follow problem solving abilities over the development of individuals, instead comparing problem-solving ability between different age cohorts [ 168 ]. Such studies have shed light on the effects of intrinsic factors on the development of problem solving, but fail to consider individual variation in development.

Furthermore, the majority of studies on problem solving concern social species. Both solitary and social species need to problem solve, but the social environment could possibly influence how individuals develop their problem solving abilities. For example, social individuals may use social learning to problem solve, whereas solitary individuals would require persistence and motivation to achieve trial-and-error learning, or would rely on innovation because they are most likely unable to rely on social demonstrators for assistance [ 122 , 170 ], at least after weaning. Current studies therefore provide a limited view of the relevance of social conditions on problem solving development.

Finally, while the influences of environmental quality on problem-solving ability are documented, they are not well understood [ 27 , 40 ]. Animals tend to innovate under harsh conditions in times of necessity [ 24 ], yet good environmental conditions benefit problem solving by promoting neuroendocrine development [ 120 ] and reducing stress [ 118 ]. The effects of the physical or social environment tend to be studied either through manipulation studies during early development, with subsequent tests occurring later on as adults in static environments [ 165 ] or via correlative studies, where individuals from different habitats are compared [ 26 ]. Similarly, studies have investigated the impact of social rank [ 132 ], social isolation [ 211 ], group size [ 121 , 136 ], and group composition [ 2 , 27 ] on problem solving, but the majority of these studies have not explored the underlying developmental processes. To our knowledge, only one longitudinal study has tracked an individual’s problem-solving ability in response to changing physical environments. Cole et al. [ 40 ] found that individual performances in free-living great tits were consistent across time (seasonal variation). How problem-solving ability changes in response to changing social environments, such as when a subordinate changes dominance rank, has rarely been studied.

5. An Individual-Centric Focus can be Beneficial

The ability to solve a problem relies on a combination of genetic and non-genetic factors [ 44 ], physiology [ 97 ], behavioural flexibility [ 95 ], general cognitive ability [ 27 ], personality [ 129 ] and mechanical ability [ 212 ]. In addition, age and experience further influence problem-solving ability. Aging results in natural neuroendocrine system changes [ 213 ], which further affect behaviour and cognition [ 163 ]. However, every individual develops along its own unique developmental trajectory within the phylogenetic constraints of the species, and the relative contribution of these intrinsic and extrinsic factors and their interactions are likely to vary considerably between individuals. Therefore, we cannot assume that individuals from the same environment [ 214 ], or even the same clutch/litter [ 215 ], will behave or respond to the environment in the same way. We only have to look at genetic clones (e.g., identical human twins displaying linguistic differences [ 216 ]) to realise the uniqueness of individual developmental trajectories. This considerable variation argues strongly for focusing on individuals, particularly as they develop, learn and experience new things over their lifetimes in the context of problem solving. Therefore, when investigating problem solving abilities in the future, it may be beneficial to consider individual variation as an important aspect of the data analyses, and not just rejected as statistical ‘white noise’ (see [ 40 , 46 ] for examples). Using this approach may enable future research to identify key predictors, or clusters of common predictors, of problem-solving ability.

6. Conclusions

Individuals experience developmental changes over the course of their lifetimes, which impact their problem-solving abilities. The external environment, including the physical and social environments, can affect the development of problem solving via its impact on underlying genetic, non-genetic and neuroendocrine mechanisms. Problem solving has a heritable component in some species, while complex neuroendocrine processes are also involved in the development of problem solving. However, untangling the influence of these different factors on the development of problem solving is challenging, given their interdependence and complexity. Our understanding of how problem solving develops would benefit from studies of solitary species, to allow for comparisons of general causal mechanisms, since solitary species cannot rely on social learning about problems, at least after weaning. Furthermore, because environments are not static, future studies should consider the effects of changing environmental conditions over the course of an individual’s lifetime on the development of problem solving. Importantly, investigating individual variation in problem-solving ability is necessary for a full understanding of the development of problem solving, which will allow us to assess the relative contributions of different developmental factors on this ability in different individuals.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Ben Hirsch and Brad Congdon for providing helpful comments on the manuscript.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, M.K.R. and T.L.R.; Writing—Original Draft Preparation, M.K.R.; Writing—Review and Editing, T.L.R. and N.P.; Supervision, T.L.R.; Project Administration, M.K.R.; Funding Acquisition, M.K.R. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

We would like to thank the Australian Government for providing a Research Training Program Scholarship to MKR, and James Cook University for funding this project.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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