In the gentle space between curiosity and discovery, sometimes what feels like a playful moment can open a door into deep questions about mind and meaning. That appears to be the case in a recently published study in Science in which researchers invited a bonobo ape to a “tea party” with scientists — not for snacks and gossip, but to explore whether non-human primates might share with humans something once believed uniquely ours: the capacity for imagination.
The subject of this intriguing research was Kanzi, a 43-year-old bonobo known to researchers for decades for his remarkable intelligence and ability to communicate with humans using symbols. In a series of carefully structured experiments, scientists from Johns Hopkins University set up scenarios reminiscent of a child’s playtime. They arranged empty cups, pitchers and jars on a table and pretended to pour imaginary juice or place invisible grapes into containers — just as a toddler might during make-believe play.
What happened next captured researchers’ attention. When asked which cup contained the imaginary juice after the pretend pouring, Kanzi pointed correctly far more often than chance would allow, suggesting that he was tracking the pretend action in his mind and forming a concept of something that wasn’t actually there. In follow-up tests where real and imaginary objects were mixed, he consistently distinguished between actual juice and pretend juice, indicating he understood the difference between real and imagined scenarios. Similar results emerged in tests involving imaginary grapes.
Scientists describe this cognitive skill as “secondary representation” — the ability to think about things that exist only in the mind, separate from the immediate physical world. In human development, children often show signs of this capacity around age two, when they begin to play make-believe and use objects in symbolic ways. Until now, such vivid evidence of this kind of mental life in animals had been elusive.
The findings invite thoughtful reflection on the evolutionary roots of imagination. If apes can mentally represent pretend objects, it suggests that this facet of cognition may have been present in a common ancestor shared by humans and great apes millions of years ago. That deepens our understanding of cognition not just as a human hallmark, but as something that might resonate more widely in the animal kingdom.
Of course, some scientists urge caution. Because Kanzi was raised in a human-rich environment and trained extensively in communication, it remains a question whether less-cultured apes would show the same abilities. Yet even with that caveat, the study nudges open a door in how we think about animal minds and the shared capacity for mental representation.
In the end, what began as an imaginative “tea party” with a bonobo becomes something more than a charming anecdote. It becomes a lens through which we might better appreciate the subtle lives of creatures closely related to us, and how much there still is to learn about the threads that tie minds across species.
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Sources • Study reported in Nature and Science showing bonobo Kanzi’s performance in pretend play experiments suggesting apes can imagine pretend objects. • University press releases and scientific summaries on apes’ ability to represent pretend objects beyond the present moment. • Independent reporting on Kanzi’s tea party experiments and scientific responses.