Like humans, chimpanzees are aware that they know certain things , they reflect on what they are thinking and act accordingly, a skill known as metaknowledge. This is the conclusion reached by a team of researchers from different American universities after studying the responses offered by several of these primates during tests designed to analyze their memory capacity.
In a study published in the journal Cognition , these scientists point out that, like people, chimpanzees also show confidence or lack of it when faced with a dilemma. To demonstrate this, they devised tests that tried to measure how much and how they remembered various events. When they successfully completed one of them, they were warned by an audible signal and given a treat.
However, the distribution took place after a few seconds and at a certain distance from where the animal was, which forced him to travel to that place to pick it up. Moreover, if he did not do so, the candy was withdrawn and he could not get it back. In essence, this offered the chimpanzee two options: it could wait to know for sure if it had passed the test, thanks to the audible warning, and then run to see if it was able to collect its food before it was lost; or else he could go to the place before he was completely certain of it. Well, the researchers found that chimpanzees did the latter much more often when they did the tests correctly than when they failed them.
Although the results do not show that chimpanzees have developed the same conscious experience as humans, they reflect a similar form of cognitive control, which influences their decision-making. Now, scientists are trying to determine whether other species, primates or not, show similar capabilities.
