A new paper published in Animal Cognition shows that capuchins are able to seek both food and functional information when faced with an uncertain situation.
You can read the full paper here, or watch our video explaining the paper below:
The researchers tested the capuchins with a series of experiments where they were presented with cups that could hide food in multiple compartments. To find the cup with the most food, they needed to peek either above or below a barrier.
In a second experiment, they presented a scenario when some of the cups had a sealed lid, and to succeed they would need to seek functional information about whether a cup was open or closed in addition to the location of the food.
The results showed the Capuchins peeked significantly more when they could not see where the food had been placed.
But the patterns of where they peeked did not change based on what information they lacked. This suggests they are able to sense uncertainty and act to resolve it, but did not plan strategically when doing so.
The same pattern held when the missing information related to the functionality of the containers and whether the food would be accessible through a closed lid. This hints that this ability could be domain-general rather than tied specifically to foraging.
Eleanor Jordan, lead author an the paper, says “The big take away is that it’s a domain general ability, which means they can search for information in a really flexible way.”
Read the full paper here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-025-01999-2