%0 Journal Article
%A Engelmann, Jan M.
%A Völter, Christoph J.
%A Goddu, Mariel K.
%A Call, Josep
%A Rakoczy, Hannes
%A Herrmann, Esther
%+ External Organizations
%T Chimpanzees prepare for alternative possible outcomes : 
%G eng
%U https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000F-AB84-B
%R 10.1098/rsbl.2023.0179
%7 2023-06-21
%D 2023
%* Review method: peer-reviewed
%X When facing uncertainty, humans often build mental models of alternative<br>outcomes. Considering diverging scenarios allows agents to respond<br>adaptively to different actual worlds by developing contingency plans (cov-<br>ering one’s bases). In a pre-registered experiment, we tested whether<br>chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) prepare for two mutually exclusive possibili-<br>ties. Chimpanzees could access two pieces of food, but only if they<br>successfully protected them from a human competitor. In one condition,<br>chimpanzees could be certain about which piece of food the human exper-<br>imenter would attempt to steal. In a second condition, either one of the<br>food rewards was a potential target of the competitor. We found that chim-<br>panzees were significantly more likely to protect both pieces of food in the<br>second relative to the first condition, raising the possibility that chimpanzees<br>represent and prepare effectively for different possible worlds.
%K chimpanzees, reasoning, modal cognition,
future planning
%J Biology Letters
%V 19
%N 6
%] 20230179
%@ 1744-957X