Bonobos track but might not represent ignorance.

Authors

Susana Monsó

Published in

Journal of experimental psychology. Animal learning and cognition. Sep 22, 2025. Epub Sep 22, 2025.

Abstract

Comments on an article by L. A. Townrow & C. Krupenye (see record 2025-81163-001). Townrow and Krupenye show that bonobos will point more in a cooperative task when their partner is ignorant of the location of the desired food. While their study convincingly shows that bonobos can track ignorance, one can question whether it provides evidence that they can represent it as such. Townrow and Krupenye claim to have found evidence of theory of mind in bonobos. In a simple yet elegant preregistered experiment, bonobos had to discriminate when their partner was ignorant of the location of food in order to know when they should point at it. The bonobos sat in front of a table with a cooperative experimenter (E1) sitting opposite and another experimenter (E2) baiting one of three cups on the table. If E1 knew the location of the food, they would always give it to the bonobo. In the initial familiarization phase, E1 always had visual access to the baiting process, and so would subsequently retrieve the reward and hand it over. The test phase then consisted of eight sessions of 15 trials. Within each session, nine trials were identical to the familiarization trials, ensuring that the bonobos were accustomed to not having to do anything in order to get the reward. The testing proper took place in the remaining six trials. Out of these, half would present E1 in a knowledge condition, with a screen put in front of them with a cutout window that would allow them to see the baiting process. The other half would present E1 in an ignorance condition, as the screen that was put in front of them lacked a window this time. The spontaneous behavior of the bonobos was then measured. At the group level, the bonobos were found to be more likely to point, and to do so more quickly, in the ignorance as compared to the knowledge condition. Townrow and Krupenye's experiment convincingly shows that bonobos are able to track others' ignorance. Townrow and Krupenye's experimental design therefore does not allow us to discriminate between the hypothesis that the bonobos were representing the situation in mentalistic terms and the hypothesis that they were using behavioral or contextual cues. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

PMID:
40991810
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 25 Sep 2025.

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