Researchers Have Uncovered a Surprising Ability in Bonobos: Playing Make-Believe Like Children
A groundbreaking study has revealed that bonobos, our closest living relatives, possess the remarkable ability to engage in make-believe play, much like children. Led by Dr. Amalia Bastos and Dr. Christopher Krupenye from the University of St Andrews and Johns Hopkins University, respectively, the team conducted an experiment with a 44-year-old bonobo named Kanzi.
In their study published in Science, Bastos and Krupenye trained Kanzi to point to containers filled with juice by rewarding him for doing so. They then presented him with two empty transparent cups and pretended to fill them with an empty jug, asking Kanzi to identify which cup contained juice. To the researchers' surprise, Kanzi correctly identified the "full" cup in 34 out of 50 trials.
What's more remarkable is that Kanzi was not rewarded for the correct answer, indicating he wasn't simply learning a desired response based on human physical motions. The researchers also tested whether Kanzi believed a real liquid was being poured into the cups and found that he chose the cup containing actual juice in 14 out of 18 trials.
Furthermore, the team discovered that Kanzi could correctly identify the location of an imaginary grape placed in one of two transparent containers. This finding provides strong evidence that bonobos can follow imaginary objects in pretend scenarios, challenging the notion that make-believe play is uniquely human.
Dr. Zanna Clay from Durham University, who was not involved in the study, emphasized the significance of this discovery, stating that it's striking to see our closest living relatives exhibiting advanced cognitive abilities and social skills. He noted that it would be more surprising if we found similar abilities in more distantly related species with less divergent social and cognitive traits.
The researchers' findings suggest that the capacity for representing pretend objects is shared across primates, dating back to a common ancestor that lived between 6-9 million years ago. This groundbreaking study opens up new avenues of research into the cognitive and social abilities of non-human animals, shedding light on our evolutionary past and the complex behaviors that have shaped our relationships with other species.
A groundbreaking study has revealed that bonobos, our closest living relatives, possess the remarkable ability to engage in make-believe play, much like children. Led by Dr. Amalia Bastos and Dr. Christopher Krupenye from the University of St Andrews and Johns Hopkins University, respectively, the team conducted an experiment with a 44-year-old bonobo named Kanzi.
In their study published in Science, Bastos and Krupenye trained Kanzi to point to containers filled with juice by rewarding him for doing so. They then presented him with two empty transparent cups and pretended to fill them with an empty jug, asking Kanzi to identify which cup contained juice. To the researchers' surprise, Kanzi correctly identified the "full" cup in 34 out of 50 trials.
What's more remarkable is that Kanzi was not rewarded for the correct answer, indicating he wasn't simply learning a desired response based on human physical motions. The researchers also tested whether Kanzi believed a real liquid was being poured into the cups and found that he chose the cup containing actual juice in 14 out of 18 trials.
Furthermore, the team discovered that Kanzi could correctly identify the location of an imaginary grape placed in one of two transparent containers. This finding provides strong evidence that bonobos can follow imaginary objects in pretend scenarios, challenging the notion that make-believe play is uniquely human.
Dr. Zanna Clay from Durham University, who was not involved in the study, emphasized the significance of this discovery, stating that it's striking to see our closest living relatives exhibiting advanced cognitive abilities and social skills. He noted that it would be more surprising if we found similar abilities in more distantly related species with less divergent social and cognitive traits.
The researchers' findings suggest that the capacity for representing pretend objects is shared across primates, dating back to a common ancestor that lived between 6-9 million years ago. This groundbreaking study opens up new avenues of research into the cognitive and social abilities of non-human animals, shedding light on our evolutionary past and the complex behaviors that have shaped our relationships with other species.
Can you even believe that bonobos can play make-believe like kids?! 
It's like they're little humans or something! The fact that Kanzi could identify the "full" cup without getting rewarded is just proof that he's thinking for himself and not just reacting to physical cues. And that he actually chose the cup with juice in some trials? 
Mind. Blown.
. This study is seriously groundbreaking and I'm so here for it! 
, but i guess bonobos are like us from way back then lol... imagine playing hide-and-seek with our ancestors 6-9 million years ago 
. it's wild that they can identify the cup with juice even when they're not being rewarded for it, just like how we know which toy is ours without needing to be told 
, i'm loving this new info!
i guess this means our primate cousins r smarter than we think 
34 out of 50 trials ain't bad lol and it gets even crazier when they test him on imaginary grapes 
i mean what do you do in your free time to pretend there's a grape in a cup or something? idk but kanzi is def the real MVP 
this study is giving me all sorts of feelz for our primate cousins and how we can learn from them it's like they're showing us what we've been doing all wrong with playtime 
. Our closest relatives, the bonobos, can outsmart us sometimes! 
It makes me wonder what our closest living relatives are really thinking. Are they secretly plotting to take over the world or something? 
... I mean, it just shows how smart they are, right? Like, Kanzi wasn't even getting a reward for doing the right thing, he was just playing along and figuring out what was going on. And its crazy to think about all those years ago when our common ancestors were already doing something like this 
... I feel like we're really learning more about ourselves by studying animals and their behaviors 
It just goes to show how advanced our primate cousins are when it comes to social skills and cognitive abilities. I guess we can't say for sure that make-believe play is uniquely human after all 
This study is a game-changer for us to understand our primate cousins better and I'm obsessed with learning more about their cognitive abilities 
Can we imagine what other tricks they can pull off?
It's not just about 'em thinking juice is in a cup or whatever... they're really getting into the pretend game! 
. Some people might say that bonobos aren't as smart as humans, but I think they're pretty darn impressive themselves 
.
, it just goes to show how intelligent and social they are. I mean, who needs a play kitchen when you can just pretend to pour juice into cups? 
. And it's crazy to think about how much our closest living relatives have evolved and adapted over millions of years 
. As a parent, I love learning about new things that can help me understand my kids (and other humans) better 
.