DOI: 10.34876/9cyk-0709
title: Innovative problem-solving in Goffin´s cockatoos

description: Comparative cognition research aims to comprehend the drivers of cognitive abilities, by comparing not only closely but also distantly related species. Studying parrots can provide valuable insights into the factors shaping our own cognition, considering that birds and mammals diverged around 319 million years ago. Being innovative, i.e., finding new ways of dealing with one´s environment, can have significant benefits for an organism, for example when acquiring new techniques for finding food. Research on parrots has already provided us with ample evidence that they can solve problems in innovative ways, even though it has only rather recently picked up pace. This thesis examines the innovative problem-solving abilities of parrots, focusing on a model species of avian physical cognition, the Goffin´s cockatoo (Cacatua goffiniana). In chapter 1, my colleagues and I summarized the current knowledge (as of early 2019 upon submission) of parrot innovation and placed the research in the context of a framework that assesses the innovation process in six stages. Despite psittacines being a diverse group, they generally share many prerequisites, including morphological and neurological features, that facilitate technical problem-solving. In the second chapter, we developed and employed a newly modified set-up to test for innovative problem-solving in a comparative setting: the ‘Innovation Arena’. With this multi-task apparatus, we tested two groups of Goffin´s cockatoos: hand-reared, long-term captive and wild-born, short-term captive individuals. Although we found a difference in success this was largely due to earlier sessions and the birds´ motivational state. The general performance showed no effect of captivity. 5 In order to facilitate replication, we further disseminated the methodology by publishing in a ‘video journal’ in chapter 3. Here we presented the setup in more detail, including technical drawings and video instructions. Several scientists have since replicated the Innovation Arena in a similar way. In chapter 4, we addressed the question of what affects individual variation in problem-solving performance, besides cognitive ability. As a first step, we tested individual object neophobia and related it to the results of the study with the Innovation Arena. Our findings suggest that more neophobic cockatoos are not generally better at solving technical tasks, although they may have an advantage of encountering opportunities earlier than more neophobic birds. I used the last chapter to recap the research on parrot cognition since the last comprehensive review in 2019. Even though the research effort on parrots has been lagging behind that of corvids for years, it has drastically increased with over 50 new studies in a time frame of only four years. Most notable are the developments in social cognition as well as an increase in field studies. The thesis ends with a brief recap and discussion of its broader scientific implications and touches upon some ideas for future directions, as well as steps already undertaken that were outside of the scope of this thesis.