First and Last Name/s of Presenters

Madison BradleyFollow
Fabiana PersicFollow
Ryan SledzikFollow

Mentor/s

Dr. Deirdre Yeater and Dr. Dawn Melzer

Participation Type

Poster

Abstract

Cetaceans, like bottlenose dolphins, are well known for their complex and highly developed cognitive capacities. Earlier research demonstrated these dolphin’s abilities to perform creative novel behaviors but the degree of creativity for the behaviors produced was not assessed. For this study, we adapted tests of human creativity to investigate creativity in 12 bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in managed care. The data were analyzed for fluency of behavioral responses. After 4 test sessions, the results indicated that the dolphins performed different behaviors for 45.6% of trials. On average, the dolphins performed 18.88 different behaviors whether they received reinforcement or not during a session and tended to perform more behaviors in a row before repeating behaviors as sessions progressed. Taken together, these results suggest that dolphins seem to show fluency in their creativity when under stimulus control.

College and Major available

Psychology

Location

University Commons

Start Day/Time

4-24-2019 2:00 PM

End Day/Time

4-24-2019 5:00 PM

Students' Information

Madison Bradley- Biology major (pre-med), Honors student, 2021

Fabiana Persic- Neuroscience major, 2019

Ryan Sledzik- Neuroscience major, 2019

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.

Prize Categories

Most Scholarly Impact or Potential, Best Multidisciplinary Research or Collaboration, Most Creative

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Apr 24th, 2:00 PM Apr 24th, 5:00 PM

Assessing creativity in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in a controlled setting

University Commons

Cetaceans, like bottlenose dolphins, are well known for their complex and highly developed cognitive capacities. Earlier research demonstrated these dolphin’s abilities to perform creative novel behaviors but the degree of creativity for the behaviors produced was not assessed. For this study, we adapted tests of human creativity to investigate creativity in 12 bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in managed care. The data were analyzed for fluency of behavioral responses. After 4 test sessions, the results indicated that the dolphins performed different behaviors for 45.6% of trials. On average, the dolphins performed 18.88 different behaviors whether they received reinforcement or not during a session and tended to perform more behaviors in a row before repeating behaviors as sessions progressed. Taken together, these results suggest that dolphins seem to show fluency in their creativity when under stimulus control.