Cuttlefish Show Self-Control, Pass "Marshmallow Test"

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956 and for Teckla:

Cuttlefish show self-control, pass 'marshmallow test':

"Self-control is thought to be the cornerstone of intelligence, as it is an important prerequisite for complex decision-making and planning for the future," said lead author Alex Schnell, a research associate in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. Not all animals share this trait, and it was previously thought that the ones that do, such as great apes, corvids and parrots, have long and social lives.

To see if a cephalopod should join the ranks, Schnell and her team adapted the famous "marshmallow test" so that it appealed to cuttlefish.

[...] They then set up a two-chamber apparatus with transparent sliding drawers. Behind one drawer, they placed a preferred meal (such as live grass shrimp) and behind the other, they placed a less preferred meal (such as Asian shore crab). The doors had symbols on them that indicated whether it would open with a delay (a triangle) or open immediately (a circle), which the cuttlefish learned to recognize.

The drawer with the less preferred meal always opened to the cuttlefish immediately, but the other drawer opened after a delay. In the control condition, the door with the preferred snack didn't open at all (a square). When the cuttlefish approached one chamber, the researchers immediately removed the snack in the other.

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