Humans, chimpanzees, parrots, and crows have evolved to exercise self-control, a trait related to higher intelligence. Now, researchers say cuttlefish, eight-armed thick-squid-like creatures, also have the ability to delay satisfaction for a better reward.
The researchers used an adapted version of the Stanford marshmallow test, in which children had the option of mocking an immediate reward (a marshmallow) or waiting for a delayed but better reward (two marshmallows), in six cuttlefish in an aquarium environment.
Invertebrates were presented with chambers marked with different visual signals in the form of shapes. For example, a sign meant that the moment food was put in the room, the door would open; One of the directions was counterintuitive, even though the food was placed in the room and the door was open, there was an extra layer of plastic that prevented the cuttlefish from eating the reward.
When cuttlefish were initially exposed in the chambers, they attacked immediately when they saw the food. Over time, they realized that each chamber had its own rules. Eventually, the mollusks didn’t even bother to approach the “unreachable” chamber because they knew they could never secure access to food.
Once the training was over, the cuttlefish were tested in the presence of two chambers; in the “immediate” room they were presented with the food of second preference, while in the room of “delay” they were given the food of first preference.
In the control parameter, these conditions were reflected, except that the delay chamber was the unreachable chamber. “We wanted to see if they were able to exercise self-control in a flexible way depending on the context,” said Dr Alex Schnell, a behavioral ecologist at Cambridge University.
“They could see the food they preferred in the unreachable room, but they could never get there, so they had to make the decision to try it or just take the immediate option.”
In general, cuttlefish delayed satisfaction when it resulted in a higher quality intake and were able to maintain delays for periods of up to 50 seconds to 130 seconds, the authors wrote in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B .
Previous research had suggested that some primates and birds exhibited this advanced level of self-control because they were social species that maintained multiple relationships and used tools, Schnell said.
These species may not search or search at a particular time to be able to build tools or wait until their mate has eaten, he noted. “But that doesn’t apply to cuttlefish … they’re not social and they don’t use tools.”
Instead, self-control could have evolved into cuttlefish to maximize efficiency, he speculated. “They are juicy food … so they spend very long periods camouflaged and remain almost immobile to prevent predators from detecting them. And this immobile behavior is broken when cuttlefish are fed.”