ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2016
Innovativeness as an emergent property: a new alignment of comparative and experimental research on animal innovation.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 55 citations in OpenAlex.
- Bumble bees that follow a stricter routine innovate less: Foraging behaviors, environmental complexity, and how they relate to novel problem solving.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- The evolutionary puzzle of cognition: challenges and insights from individual-based studies.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Mechanical Problem Solving in Goffin's Cockatoos-Towards Modeling Complex Behavior.Adaptive behavior · 2024Article
- Innovation across 13 ungulate species: problem solvers are less integrated in the social group and less neophobic.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Behavior of snow monkeys hunting fish to survive winter.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Animal Creativity as a Function of Behavioral Innovation and Behavior Flexibility in Problem-solving Situations.Integrative psychological & behavioral science · 2022Article
- Linking cognition to ecology in wild sympatric mouse lemur species.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Not by transmission alone: the role of invention in cultural evolution.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
- Perceived Factors Influencing the Public Intention to Use E-Consultation: Analysis of Web-Based Survey Data.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Article
- Neophobia in 10 ungulate species-a comparative approach.Behavioral ecology and sociobiology · 2021Article
- Horses' (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2019Article
- Are generalists more innovative than specialists? A comparison of innovative abilities in two wild sympatric mouse lemur species.Royal Society open science · 2018Article
- Innovation: an emerging focus from cells to societies.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2017Article
- How far will a behaviourally flexible invasive bird go to innovate?Royal Society open science · 2016Article
- Animal and human innovation: novel problems and novel solutions.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2016Article
- Environmental and genetic determinants of innovativeness in a natural population of birds.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2016Article
- Article
- Persistence associated with extractive foraging explains variation in innovation in Darwin's finches.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Innovation and creativity are key defining features of human societies. As we face the global challenges of the twenty-first century, they are also facets upon which we must become increasingly reliant. But what makes Homo sapiens so innovative and where does our high innovation propensity come from? Comparative research on innovativeness in non-human animals allows us to peer back through evolutionary time and investigate the ecological factors that drove the evolution of innovativeness, whereas experimental research identifies and manipulates underpinning creative processes. In commenting on the present theme issue, I highlight the controversies that have typified this research field and show how a paradigmatic shift in our thinking about innovativeness will contribute to resolving these tensions. In the past decade, innovativeness has been considered by many as a trait, a direct product of cognition, and a direct target of selection. The evidence I review here suggests that innovativeness will be hereon viewed as one component, or even an emergent property of a larger array of traits, which have evolved to deal with environmental variation. I illustrate how research should capitalize on taxonomic diversity to unravel the full range of psychological processes that underpin innovativeness in non-human animals.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.