A study shows that chimpanzees have the ability to think.

A study published this week in the journal “Biology Letters” by the Royal Society of London revealed that chimpanzees, like humans, have the ability to think in scenarios and prepare for them to achieve their goals.

Stereotypical thinking is considered a privilege of the human brain theoretically. It allows us to imagine or think about what might have happened or what could happen under certain circumstances, such as feeling regret for leaving the house without an umbrella before it rains or simply taking it just in case it rains.

Researchers believe that this ability to think is limited to humans, that it only appears after early childhood, and that it requires language acquisition.

However, other researchers have found that chimpanzees can think logically when faced with a situation involving a choice.

The French news agency “AFP” quoted Jean Ingelman, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Berkeley, as saying: “Model-based inference is the basis of our ability to imagine.”
However, according to the lead author of the new study, “chimpanzees can think of alternative possibilities, that is, they can imagine the potential outcomes” of a certain situation.

Observing the reactions of chimpanzees
The researcher had already tested this last year by observing the reactions of chimpanzees to a person conducting an experiment, depending on whether the latter had the option to give them an expected reward or not.

The chimpanzee did not react with any hostility towards the person conducting the experiment when its desires were not fulfilled and it was not dependent on them, but it showed displeasure in the opposite case.

Engelmann wanted to know this time, along with colleagues from British, Austrian, and German universities, whether chimpanzees could imagine and prepare for a scenario with two possible outcomes, which is the first of its kind.

The experiment was inspired by another one in which a chimpanzee was placed in front of an inverted Y-shaped tube, where the person conducting the experiment would leave a reward.

The experiment raised doubts about the monkey’s ability to consider the two possible outcomes by placing its hand under the tube’s openings. But Professor Engelmann saw that “such behavior does not come naturally to chimpanzees.”

A competition that stimulates cognitive activity
This time, the chimpanzee faces a somewhat similar experiment, but it is placed in “competition” with the person in charge of the experiment. It is a competition that stimulates cognitive activity in these primates, according to the researchers.

The researcher placed the reward on a vibrating tray, located beneath each of the two vertical tubes or an inverted tube in the shape of a “Y.”

In each case, the person responsible for the experiment drops a stone onto one of the vibrating pieces placed at the pipe’s outlet. Then the reward falls on her, and the chimpanzee is deprived of it at the same time. Except for the hand movement, the monkey does not block the correct rocking piece to prevent the reward from falling from the person in charge of the experiment.

The experiment statistically showed that the chimpanzee was able to block the two vibrating pieces more easily when the pebble fell into an inverted “Y”-shaped tube.