Reacción a "Bonobo Kanzi shows that the ability to imagine is not unique to humans"

This is an excellent experiment, which uses a simple but highly original task to explore for the first time in an experimental way a topic—imaginative play—that until now had remained in the background in the study of anthropoid apes.

Until now, there had only been highly debated evidence of the existence of this ability in non-human primates. This study reinforces the possibility that the rare examples of possible imaginary play observed in anthropoids are genuine, or at least tell us something about the evolutionary precursors of this capacity, which is so important and well developed in humans.

[Regarding possible limitations] The authors carried out controls that rule out many alternative explanations, but, as is often the case in this type of study, the possibility of other explanations remains. For example, perhaps Kanzi has learned that the correct response is to point to the cups that have something in them, and when urged by his carers to choose between two apparently empty cups, he thinks that the only one that might have something in it is the one that has not been turned over. He would therefore choose it, not because he understands that the human is pretending it has juice, but by process of elimination, just in case there is something in it that cannot be seen.

But, alternative interpretations aside, in my opinion the most important contribution of this study, beyond its promising results, is the fact that it provides for the first time an experimental paradigm that can continue to be used to systematically investigate the possible evolutionary precursors of imaginative play in non-human primates. The authors have taken a giant step forward by making it possible to experimentally investigate this important question, which until now had remained in the background largely due to the lack of reliable ways to investigate it.