title: An end to insight? New Caledonian crows can spontaneously solve problems without planning their actions.
abstract: Animals rarely solve problems spontaneously. Some bird species, however, can immediately find a solution to the string-pulling problem. They are able to rapidly gain access to food hung on the end of a long string by repeatedly pulling and then stepping on the string. It is currently unclear whether these spontaneous solutions are produced by insight or by a perceptual-motor feedback loop. Here, we presented New Caledonian crows and humans with a novel horizontal string-pulling task. While the humans succeeded, no individual crow showed a significant preference for the connected string, and all but one failed to gain the food even once. These results clearly show that string pulling in New Caledonian crows is generated not by insight, but by perceptual feedback. Animals can spontaneously solve problems without planning their actions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand. alexander.taylor@auckland.ac.nz
authors.forename: Alex H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.forename: Brenna
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Knaebe
authors.forename: Russell D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Gray
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003071:Cognition; D003216:Conditioning, Operant; D046368:Crows / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009510:New Caledonia; D009520:New Zealand; D011340:Problem Solving; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D053001:Tool Use Behavior; D055815:Young Adult