Insightful problem solving in an Asian elephant
Open accessAbstract
The "aha" moment or the sudden arrival of the solution to a problem is a common human experience. Spontaneous problem solving without evident trial and error behavior in humans and other animals has been referred to as insight. Surprisingly, elephants, thought to be highly intelligent, have failed to exhibit insightful problem solving in previous cognitive studies. We tested whether three Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) would use sticks or other objects to obtain food items placed out-of-reach and overhead. Without prior trial and error behavior, a 7-year-old male Asian elephant showed spontaneous problem solving by moving a large plastic cube, on which he then stood, to acquire the food. In further testing he showed behavioral flexibility, using this technique to reach other items and retrieving the cube from various locations to use as a tool to acquire food. In the cube's absence, he generalized this tool utilization technique to other objects and, when given smaller objects, stacked them in an attempt to reach the food. The elephant's overall behavior was consistent with the definition of insightful problem solving. Previous failures to demonstrate this ability in elephants may have resulted not from a lack of cognitive ability but from the presentation of tasks requiring trunk-held sticks as potential tools, thereby interfering with the trunk's use as a sensory organ to locate the targeted food.
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Only in more recent years has greater focus been placed on more cognitive types of enrichment.
“Only in more recent years has greater focus been placed on more cognitive types of enrichment, including time-delay puzzle feeders, high tech enrichment devices, and insightful problem solving tasks (Foerder et al., 2011;Highfill et al., 2016;Krebs & Watters, 2017;French, Mancini & Sharp, 2018;Barrett & Benson-Amran, 2020).”
From Continuing challenges of elephant captivity: the captive environment, health issues, and welfare implications (2024) · cites this paper as Foerder et al., 2011
The Abstract describes an insightful problem-solving task in which an Asian elephant used a cube to reach food, and the Results (Stacking; page unavailable) describe further tasks using objects previously used for enrichment. The paper therefore supports the cited example of an insightful problem-solving task, but it does not establish the broader claim that cognitive enrichment has received greater focus in recent years. (LLM, conf=0.82)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredFoerder et al. (2011) observed that after an initial instance of spontaneous problem-solving-an elephant moved and stood on a large plastic cube to acquire an out-of-reach food item-the latency to use the cube as a tool decreased in successive trials. Additionally, when presented with other objects instead of the plastic cube, the elephant generalized his use of tools to other large objects and甚至
“Furthermore, Foerder et al. (2011) observed that after an initial instance of spontaneous problem-solving-an elephant moved and stood on a large plastic cube to acquire an out-of-reach food item-the latency to use the cube as a tool decreased in successive trials. Additionally, when presented with other objects instead of the plastic cube, the elephant generalized his use of tools to other large”
From Do elephants really never forget? What we know about elephant memory and a call for further investigation (2025) · cites this paper as Foerder et al., 2011
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Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredFoerder et al. (2011) showed that one Asian elephant used insightful problem-solving by spontaneously employing a large plastic cube as a tool on which he could stand to reach food above his head. There was no evidence in this study for trial-and-error learning.
“Interestingly, Foerder et al. (2011) showed that one Asian elephant used insightful problem-solving by spontaneously employing a large plastic cube as a tool on which he could stand to reach food above his head. There was no evidence in this study for trial-and-error learning.”
From Do elephants really never forget? What we know about elephant memory and a call for further investigation (2025) · cites this paper as Foerder et al., 2011
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References 35 · Cited by 107
- Authors
- Foerder, P., Galloway, M., Barthel, T., Moore, D. E., & Reiss, D.
- Affiliations
- The Graduate Center, CUNY (US)
- Smithsonian Institution (US)
- Corresponding author
- Reiss, Diana
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2011-08-18
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- e23251
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3158079
- OpenAlex
- W2035043103
- Cited by
- 107
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 4 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 4.80
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- CUNY Academic Works (City University of New York) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Smithsonian Institution
- City University of New York
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Health Sciences › Veterinary › Small Animals › Animal Behavior and Welfare Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- insight, Asian elephant, tool use, object stacking, behavioral flexibility
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Asia, Elephants, Female, Humans, Male, Problem Solving, Tool Use Behavior
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