Cuttlefish Pass a Delayed Gratification Cognitive Test That Was Designed for Children

Scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory at the University of Chicago discovered that cuttlefish easily passed a delayed gratification test that was originally designed for human children.

In 2021, Cuttlefish were given a new version of the famous Stanford marshmallow test, and the results may demonstrate that there's more going on in their strange little brains than we knew.

The experiment, which was conducted withDr. Alex SchnellofCambridge Universityin residence, was a modified version of the famousStanford Marshmallow Experiment.This experiment promised young human children a second marshmallow if they could hold off on eating the first.

The clever cephalopods were given a similar choice: if they could hold off eating shrimp meat, then they would be rewarded with live shrimp. Their response was to wait. This reaction was not only comparable to humans but also to other animals with large brains.

Cuttlefish in the present study were all able to wait for the better reward and tolerated delays for up to 50-130 seconds, which is comparable to what we see in large-brained vertebrates such as chimpanzees, crows and parrots.