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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jan 6, 2026

Operant Protocols for Assessing the Cost-benefit Analysis During Reinforced Decision Making by Rodents

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Published on: September 10, 2018

Do Asian elephants plan for mutually-exclusive outcomes?

Sydney F Hope¹, Sangpa Dittakul², Marnoch Yindee³

¹Department of Psychology, Hunter College, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA. sydney.hope@gmail.com.

Animal Cognition

|November 12, 2025

Summary

Elephants demonstrated some ability to plan for mutually-exclusive outcomes in a novel task. However, results did not provide conclusive evidence for individual or collective planning in Asian elephants.

Keywords:

Elephas maximus Asian elephant Collective intelligence Future planning Mutually-exclusive outcomes Social context

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Ethology
Animal Behavior
Comparative Psychology

Background:

Future planning and understanding mutually-exclusive outcomes are considered key cognitive abilities.
The capacity for such planning has primarily been studied in humans, with questions arising about its presence in non-human animals.
Group coordination may offer an alternative pathway for collective planning, even if individual planning is limited.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the capacity for individual and collective planning for mutually-exclusive outcomes in Asian elephants (Elephas maximus).
To adapt a forked tube task, previously used with children and apes, for use with elephants.

Main Methods:

Twelve Asian elephants were tested individually and in pairs using a modified forked tube task.
The task involved a food reward dropped down a tube, exiting from one of two openings.
Success was measured by the elephants' ability to consistently cover both openings to secure the reward.

Main Results:

One elephant, Nammei, learned to cover both openings, achieving success significantly above chance (61.5%).
Pairs of elephants were more successful than individuals at obtaining the reward (60.1% of trials).
However, complete coordination (covering both openings) was not achieved by pairs (35.0%), and Nammei reverted to covering only one opening.

Conclusions:

The study's findings do not provide compelling evidence for individual or collective planning for mutually-exclusive outcomes in elephants.
Observed behaviors suggest potential for future research into elephant cognition and planning abilities.
The results highlight the complexity of assessing advanced cognitive functions in non-human animals.