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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 16, 2026

Operant Conditioning Task to Measure Song Preference in Zebra Finches

Operant Conditioning Task to Measure Song Preference in Zebra Finches

Published on: December 26, 2019

Chimpanzees predict that a competitor's preference will match their own.

Martin Schmelz¹, Josep Call, Michael Tomasello

¹Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany. martin_schmelz@eva.mpg.de

Biology Letters

|November 30, 2012

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Chimpanzees predict others' behavior by assuming shared preferences. They adjust their actions in food competition, avoiding items they prefer if a competitor has already chosen one, indicating social reasoning.

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Area of Science:

Primate behavior
Social cognition
Animal psychology

Background:

Predicting others' behavior is crucial for social competition.
Chimpanzees demonstrate observational learning to infer others' states (seeing, hearing, knowing).

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if chimpanzees assume others share their own preferences.
To determine if chimpanzees adjust behavior based on assumed shared preferences in competitive contexts.

Main Methods:

Chimpanzees were presented with two boxes, one with a food picture and one blank.
Food competition tasks were designed where one chimpanzee (competitor) chose a box first.
Subjects' choices were observed in relation to the competitor's choice and their own initial preferences.

Main Results:

Chimpanzees initially preferred the box with the food picture.
When a competitor chose a box first, subjects avoided the food-picture box.
This avoidance suggests an assumption that the competitor shared their preference and had already taken the preferred item.

Conclusions:

Chimpanzees act on the assumption that others' preferences mirror their own.
This study provides evidence for theory of mind in chimpanzees, specifically in predicting behavior based on assumed shared preferences.
Behavioral adjustments in competitive scenarios highlight sophisticated social reasoning in chimpanzees.