Planning abilities in non-human animals: new findings in primates and birds

Abstract

Planning, or an internal process of making decisions about one's future behavior, appears advantageous not only for humans but also for non-human species. In fact, recent studies have shown that many non-human primates as well as some avian species may be endowed with planning capacities. Those animals are suggested to plan in order to meet not only present but also future needs, as opposed to the Bischof-Köhler hypothesis. Testing planning in a wider variety of species using various setups would be required to uncover phylogenetic and ecological factors that may have facilitated evolution of planning. In particular, it is important to examine planning abilities by using general learning tasks instead of species-specific situations such as tool-use and food-caching. After reviewing evidence on planning by non-human animals, we introduce recent findings about planning by pigeons in operant tasks including computerized navigation and maze tasks. Planning capacities may be shared across species from wider-ranging taxa than have been assumed. Metacognition of planning would serve as one of the most important topics for the future quest.