Chimps \'r\' not us: They can perceive alternatives (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, June 21, 2023, 16:38 (316 days ago) @ David Turell

A recent study:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2379077-chimpanzees-can-prepare-for-alternative-fu...

"We are no longer the only animal known to think ahead and prepare for two possible futures – chimps can do it too.

"If you are unsure whether it will be sunny or raining later, you might grab sunscreen and an umbrella before you leave home. This ability to consider different eventualities, known as modal reasoning, is essential to human cognition.

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"Working at Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Uganda, where the animals can roam in 95 acres of forest, the researchers put individual chimps in front of two tilting platforms, each with a piece of food on it. The first version of the experiment used an opaque cylindrical tube above one of the platforms, through which the team would drop a rock.

"If the chimpanzee didn’t intervene, the food would fall, but if it stabilised the platform with its hands, it was given the food as a reward. In this scenario, the 15 chimpanzees only stabilised the platform they knew the rock would hit.

"The second experiment used an opaque inverted Y-shaped tube with an exit above each platform. Not knowing which platform the rock was going to hit meant the chimpanzees behaved differently. Thirteen of the 15 were more likely to cover their bases and steady both platforms to protect both pieces of food.

“'To my knowledge, they’re the first [non-human] animals who demonstrate competence in a task measuring the representation of alternative possibilities,” says Engelmann.
Some evidence suggests that children aged between 1 and 2.5 years can consider mutually exclusive outcomes, says team member Mariel Goddu at Harvard University. But there are researchers who argue that these abilities don’t develop until the age of 4, when children are able to talk about multiple possibilities. The chimpanzee findings support the earlier age range, showing that this ability may not be dependent on language, she says.

“'The representation of alternative possibilities is fundamental to many cognitive capacities that humans are proud of, like creativity and morality,” says Engelmann. “It’s quite exciting to think that there might be an evolutionary history to this ability as well.'”

Comment: A well-thought-out study. Certainly alternatives can appear in the Chimps simple lives.