Amalia Bastos meets Bonobo Kanzi for the first time in 2023. Bastos was “starstruck”, she recalls: He was famous for learning how to communicate with humans using a keyboard of Kanzi symbols. Upon seeing Bastos for the first time, Kanzi immediately pointed to him and another scientist. The monkey then pointed to his “lexigrams” – the symbols he used to communicate – selecting icons for “chase” and “tickling”.
The two researchers obliged, pretending to chase and tickle each other. “(Kanzi) found it extremely amusing,” Bastos recalls. “And I was like, ‘We’re not really chasing each other or really tickling each other, but he seems satisfied with this kind of puppet show he’s put together.'”
Bastos, who was then a visiting postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University, traveled to the Ape Cognition and Conservation Initiative in Iowa with a group of researchers to observe and interact with Kanji and other animals at the center.
On supporting science journalism
If you enjoyed this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism Subscribing By purchasing a subscription, you are helping ensure a future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
But Bastos’s encounter with Kanji raised a question: Can the animal understand the difference between ostensible actions and real actions? one in new study published in Science On Thursday, Bastos and his co-authors presented evidence that, yes, Kanji can understand fake objects in a controlled setting.
The findings indicate that bonobos — or at least kanji — have the ability to imagine, says Christopher Krupenny, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Johns Hopkins and senior author of the paper. “We’re not the only animals with rich mental lives that can move beyond the here and now,” he says.
To test his hypothesis, Bastos designed the study around 1980s developmental psychology research in children, in which participants pretended to have a birthday or a tea party.
Instead of tea, Bastos opted for fruit juice. Then he and his team showed Kanji two empty transparent cups and an empty jug. The researchers pretended to pour juice into cups and then pour one of them out. Then he asked Kanji where the juice was. He pointed to the cup that had not yet been poured.
Bastos explains that if Kanji had no concept of counterfeit objects, his answer would be random. But in the experiment, the bonobos correctly pointed to the cup that still contained “juice” more often than was expected by chance. Bastos repeated the experiment with the fake “grape” and, again, the kanji performed better than chance. And in another experiment, Kanji was given a choice between fake and real juice. Perhaps not surprisingly, as a juice lover, he tended to opt for the real thing.
The results were not a complete surprise to Bastos; She says there is some evidence of chimpanzees engaging in similar behavior. For example, female chimpanzees have been observed cradling and carrying sticks like infants. In another case, a captive chimpanzee appeared to be pulling An invisible object on the floor in the same way he usually plays with wooden blocks.
Martin Surbek, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University who studies wild bonobos, says the new study supports what many researchers observing the animals in the wild have long suspected: that some apes can perceive simulated objects. But he cautioned that it is not clear why bonobos might have this ability or in what context it might be used.
Daniel Povinelli, a biology professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, is more skeptical. He says it is not possible to know for sure whether Kanzi understood the imaginary objects “in a human sense” or whether the bonobo simply recognized that a cup had not been touched by the researcher. Povinelli argues that the study shows that Kanzi can follow “complex, human-directed interaction structures”, but it “does not address the deeper question of what kinds of concepts lie behind Kanzi’s performance.”
Bastos hopes the results will provide insight into whether some animals have the ability to distinguish between the here and now and more abstract realities – for example, planning for the future, or being able to pretend. Unfortunately, future studies will not include kanji; He died last year at the age of 44.
Study co-author Krupenye says the experiment could foster a greater appreciation for the endangered species bonobos, as well as animal cognition research more broadly. “My hope is that our discovery will lead to increased research[efforts]to understand what types of imagination animals share with humans and which species have these abilities,” he says.
It’s time to stand up for science
If you enjoyed this article, I would like to ask for your support. scientific American He has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most important moment in that two-century history.
i have been one scientific American I’ve been a member since I was 12, and it’s helped shape the way I see the world. Science Always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does the same for you.
if you agree scientific AmericanYou help ensure that our coverage focuses on meaningful research and discovery; We have the resources to report on decisions that put laboratories across America at risk; And that we support both emerging and working scientists at a time when the value of science is too often recognised.
In return, you get the news you need, Captivating podcasts, great infographics, Don’t miss the newsletter, be sure to watch the video, Challenging games, and the best writing and reporting from the world of science. you can even Gift a membership to someone.
There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you will support us in that mission.
