Can Dolphins Plan their Behavior?

Abstract

The ability to plan ones behavior in novel and appropriate ways when confronted with new problems has been found in members of relatively few species. This ability provides significant evolutionary advantages in that the planner can mentally assess possible solutions prior to implementing one of them, and so need not risk life and limb by muddling though possible solutions to problems via trial and error learning. Although there are instances of wild dolphin behavior that suggest planning, it is difficult to determine if such behaviors were the result of planning, trial and error learning, or even some form of serendipitous discovery. Investigations of problem solving in bottlenose dolphins living in zoological settings can better assess the actual causes of apparent planning, and such controlled studies have demonstrated that dolphins can plan their behaviors in novel contexts. These settings facilitate the assessment of processes that underlie behaviors of interest, while observations from the wild provide invaluable information about apparent planning behavior in various contexts. Integrating findings from both settings is necessary if we hope to fully understand the dolphin capacity for planning.