Animal Innovation

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Summary: A great book on animal innovation
Review: As far as I know this is the first book on animal innovation. As such, it sets a high standard. The editors have managed to bring together a stellar cast of international experts that write about the latest developments in their fields. Reader and Laland (pioneers in animal innovation research themselves) open with a wonderfully comprehensive chapter in which they review the field and put the chapters in the book in perspective. I didn't know much about animal innovation before, but this book shows that it is a fascinating topic with important implications for animal cognition, social learning theory, neuroscience and evolution. The book not only presents a wealth of interesting results on animal innovation but is also full of interesting ideas, particularly on the evolution of brain and cognition. This is not a textbook, but should be very useful for advanced courses on animal behavior and cognition. In addition, every self-respecting teacher and researcher in animal behavior or experimental psychology should have this book.

Rating:
Summary: Reviews of Animal Innovation
Review: From the publisher's website:

'The editors have succeeded in putting innovation well and truly on the map as a phenomenon to be reckoned with. They provide a series of outstanding questions that demand answers, and the book will stimulate further research efforts.' - Nature

'Innovation has likely been a significant causal force in the evolution of many species. This book provides a wide-ranging and up-to-date review of an important phenomenon.' - Henry Plotkin, Professor of Psychobiology, University College, London, UK.

'Over the past 20 years, as scientists have conducted increasingly detailed, long-term studies of animals, they have come to know their subjects' behaviour so well that they can state with confidence when a truly novel innovation has appeared. Animal Innovation offers the first attempt to analyse such discoveries in a careful, scientific manner. The volume is filled with wonderful examples - strikingly innovative behaviours by species ranging from guppies to chimpanzees... Observing an animal do something it has never done before is genuinely exciting. Animal Innovation offers the equally exciting prospect of studying such creative behaviour scientifically.' - Robert Seyfarth, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, USA.

'Innovation - the Mother of All Culture - has been curiously neglected for decades, in part because no one really knew how to study it. Now, at last, we do, and this book shows how it should be done and documents the surprising advances that have been made in just a few years.' - Carel van Schaik, Professor/Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy, Duke University, USA.