Social Learning, Innovation, and Intelligence in Fish

Abstract

Social learning refers to learning that results from exposure to the behavior of other individuals. It enables animals to acquire locally adaptive information about beneficial or dangerous situations from more experienced conspecifics and heterospecifics, thus avoiding some of the risks associated with trial and error learning (Galef, 1995; Giraldeau and Caraco, 2000; Laland et al., 1993, 1996). Many animals are capable of social learning, and empirical and theoretical findings suggest that in most cases it does not require advanced cognitive abilities (Galef, 1988; Heyes, 1994; Whiten and Ham, 1992). In fact, most cases of social learning in animals appear to be mediated by simple processes such as local or stimulus enhancement, in which the behavior of another animal draws an individual's attention to a location or stimulus, about which the observer subsequently learns something.