Apes perform like infants in false-belief tasks
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Updated: Aug 4, 2026

Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm
Published on: April 28, 2016
1Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria. thomas.bugnyar@univie.ac.at.
Abstract:
Although the extent to which some nonhuman animals understand mental states is currently under debate, attributing false beliefs has been considered to be beyond their limits. A recent study by Krupenye, Kano, Hirata, Call, and Tomasello (Science, 354, 110-114, 2016) shows that great apes pass a false-belief task when they are tested with an anticipatory-looking paradigm developed for nonverbal human infants.
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