Chimpanzees consider alternative possibilities

• Published in: Current biology Vol. 31; no. 20; pp. R1377 - R1378
• Main Authors: Engelmann, Jan M., Völter, Christoph J., O’Madagain, Cathal, Proft, Marina, Haun, Daniel B.M., Rakoczy, Hannes, Herrmann, Esther
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Inc 25.10.2021
• Subjects: Animals; Cognition; Humans; Judgment; Morals; Pan troglodytes - psychology; Problem Solving
• ISSN: 0960-9822; 1879-0445
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.09.012

Humans reason not only about actual events (what is), but also about possible events (what could be). Many key operations of human cognition involve the representation of possibilities, including moral judgment, future planning, and causal understanding1. But little is known about the evolutionary roots of this kind of thought. Humans’ closest relatives, chimpanzees, possess several cognitive abilities that are closely related to reasoning about alternatives: they plan for the future2, evaluate other’s actions3, and reason causally4. However, in the first direct test of the ability to consider alternatives, Redshaw and Suddendorf5 claim that chimpanzees are not able to represent alternative possibilities. Here, using a novel method, we challenge this conclusion: our results suggest that, like human cognition, chimpanzee thought is not limited to what is, but also involves reasoning about what could be the case. Engelmann et al. find that chimpanzees act in such a way as to accommodate multiple possibilities at once. Contrary to earlier findings, these results suggest that chimpanzees not only think about what is but also about what could be.