title: Great apes distinguish true from false beliefs in an interactive helping task.
abstract: Understanding the behavior of others in a wide variety of circumstances requires an understanding of their psychological states. Humans' nearest primate relatives, the great apes, understand many psychological states of others, for example, perceptions, goals, and desires. However, so far there is little evidence that they possess the key marker of advanced human social cognition: an understanding of false beliefs. Here we demonstrate that in a nonverbal (implicit) false-belief test which is passed by human 1-year-old infants, great apes as a group, including chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), bonobos (Pan paniscus), and orangutans (Pongo abelii), distinguish between true and false beliefs in their helping behavior. Great apes thus may possess at least some basic understanding that an agent's actions are based on her beliefs about reality. Hence, such understanding might not be the exclusive province of the human species.
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, Germany.|Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Bern, Fabrikstraße 8, CH Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: David
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0915-7114
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Buttelmann
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Psychology, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Am Steiger 3/1, Jena, Germany.|School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Mary's Quad, St Andrews, Scotland, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Frances
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Buttelmann
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, Germany.|School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Mary's Quad, St Andrews, Scotland, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Malinda
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Carpenter
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, Germany.|School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Mary's Quad, St Andrews, Scotland, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Josep
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Call
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, Germany.|Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States of America.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tomasello
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D015186:Hominidae / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D019974:Pan paniscus / Q000523:psychology; D002679:Pan troglodytes / Q000523:psychology; D057080:Pongo abelii / Q000523:psychology; D012919:Social Behavior