The “tea party” experiments
The team designed simple play scenarios that resembled children’s pretend games.
In one test, a researcher pretended to pour juice into two empty cups and then poured one cup back into a jug. If Kanzi followed the imaginary liquid, one cup would still “contain” juice. When asked where the juice was, Kanzi pointed to the correct cup more often than random guessing would predict.
In another task, one cup held real juice and the other only imaginary juice. Kanzi chose the cup with real liquid, showing he could separate fantasy from reality.
A third setup used imaginary grapes moved between bowls. Again, Kanzi selected the bowl that should have held the pretend fruit more than half the time.
Independent scientists said the results were striking.
“It’s so fascinating to get such clear evidence of imagination,” said Joseph Feldblum, an evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University who was not involved in the research. “These experiments are able to peel back the layers and understand a lot more about what’s actually going on inside their minds.”
