Children love to play pretend, holding imaginary tea parties, educating classrooms of teddies or running their own grocery ...

Humans aren't the only species that can pretend, a study shows. Scientists offered a bonobo imaginary juice and grapes in a ...

In the first demonstration of pretend play in a non-human, the ape favoured a cup filled with imaginary juice over one with ...

Given that bonobos are endangered in their home of the Democratic Republic of Congo, he added, “My hope is that that kind of ...

Kanzi, a bonobo with exceptional language skills, took part in a make-believe tea party that demonstrated cognitive abilities ...

New study reveals our closest relatives share the cognitive roots of imagination and pretense. Remember childhood tea parties ...

Past anecdotal observations have hinted that great apes play pretend. But now, experimental research shows that our closest living relatives can keep track of imaginary objects.

Little kids hosting make-believe tea parties is a fixture of childhood playtime and long presumed to be exclusively a human ...

Apes, like humans, are capable of pretend play, challenging long-held views about how animals think, a new study suggests.

Amalia Bastos first met Kanzi the bonobo in 2023. Bastos was “starstruck,” she recalls: Kanzi was famous for learning how to communicate with humans using a keyboard of symbols. Upon first seeing ...

The findings indicate that bonobos—or at least that Kanzi had—have the capacity to imagine, says Christopher Krupenye, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Johns Hopkins and ...

A bonobo tracked imaginary juice and pretend grapes in an experiment, challenging long-held assumptions about the abilities ...