Squid, marine invertebrates associated with squid and octopuses can pass the so-called “marshmallow test”, an experiment designed to test whether human children have the self-control to wait for a better reward.
The study, published Wednesday in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, places squid in the ranks of larger-brain vertebrates such as great apes, parrots and corvettes in terms of how long they can delay gratification, making them the first invertebrates to show self-control. . , Report Live Science.
“Self-control is considered the cornerstone of intelligence, as it is an important prerequisite for complex decision-making and planning for the future,” lead author and fellow research fellow Alex Schnell, University of Cambridge, told Live Science.
The marshmallow experiment was first performed in the 1960s by Walter Mischel at Stanford. To test the mechanisms behind self-control, children have been given the choice of having one marshmallow, or another treat, or they are now waiting 15 to 20 minutes to get two. Recent research has cast doubt on the idea that children’s ability to wait determines success later in life, as The Atlantic explained. Instead, both that ability and subsequent performance can be explained by external factors such as economic stability. Still, that hasn’t stopped the test from becoming a viral meme among quarantine parents, as Buzzfeed explained.
For squid, the reward had to be changed slightly. Instead of sweet treats, squid had a choice between a meal like grass shrimp or king shrimp or a less popular meal like an Asian crab, Live Science explained. They got two drawers. One that opened immediately with the lesser meal and one that opened after a delay with the preferred meal. If they choose the first option, the second snack will disappear.
“Squid in the current study could all wait for the better reward and tolerate delays up to 50-130 seconds, which is comparable to what we see in large-brain vertebrates such as chimpanzees, crows and parrots,” Schnell told the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL). ), where the research was done.
The researchers also tested the squid for intelligence, and found that the squid that could wait longer for their favorite food also performed better during a learning test. This is the first time that intelligence and self-control are linked in an animal other than humans or chimpanzees.
However, Schnell and her colleagues are not sure why squid need self-control. For social animals such as parrots, crows, monkeys and humans, it is important for group solidarity. For example, people wait to eat to share meals. It can also be important to have tools that build tools, that need patience to build a tool before hunting.
In blood fish, the researchers assume that self-control has a different function.
“Squid spend most of their time camouflaging, sitting and waiting, interrupted by short periods of food,” Schnell told MBL. “They break camouflage when they eat, and are therefore exposed to every predator in the ocean they want to eat. We speculate that delayed gratification may have evolved as a by-product of this, allowing the squid to optimize the feed by waiting to ‘ to choose a better quality. food. “
The fact that squid and social apes need self-control is an example of something called convergent evolution, a process in which animals develop the same traits through different mechanisms.
Correction: According to an earlier version of the story, the study was published Thursday. It has been updated to say that it was published on Wednesday, March 3rd.
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