This ability to imagine what might be going on in someone else's head is known as the theory of mind. But according to a new study in Science, the nonhuman members of the great ape family may indeed have the same mental capacity. “Where apes have consistently failed, though, is on tasks designed to assess their understanding of others’ false beliefs. The films showed interactions between people and “apes.” (The latter actually were humans — who are technically apes — dressed up as nonhuman apes.) The red dots show where the subjects are looking, showing that they understand the human's false belief about the location of the object.

Source: Washington Post October 07, 2016 13:15 UTC