Chris Krupenye

What a fantastic and stimulating theory of mind symposium at SSPP!

Thanks so much for organizing, @nicolefurgala.bsky.social !!

It was a treat to learn from and contribute alongside a dream lineup of philosophers and psychologists I deeply admire!

Do Great Apes Know Each Other's Names? Probing Great Ape Comprehension of Social Vocal Labels — Animal Behavior and Cognition

New article out exploring great ape name recognition! We find partial evidence that zoo-living chimps & bonobos know each other's names 👀 Huge thanks to Animal Behavior and Cognition (a great open-access journal) & co-authors for your collaboration!🎉🐵

unsvr1.com/web/abc/work...

Postdoc Position in Animal Behaviour Does intergroup conflict shape intragroup (parochial) prosociality in primates? If so, what behavioural, neuroendocrine, and (epi)genetic mechanisms drive it.

#Postdoc #Job opportunity in #AnimalBehaviour with Jorg Massen at @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social. Check out the position here: www.uu.nl/en/organisat...

Hiring for 3 positions: Research Assistant, Field Research Coordinator, and Postdoc I am looking to hire 3 people into my lab this year. I am still doing the paperwork to get the jobs officially posted but I want to send the word out and screen potential applications right away. R…

I am hiring a research assistant (vampire bats), a Panama fieldwork coordinator (vampire bats), and also considering postdoc apps (social behavior, any species): socialbat.org/2026/02/19/h...

Associate Professor (111338-0226) at University of Warwick Discover an exciting academic career path as a Associate Professor (111338-0226) at jobs.ac.uk. Don't miss out on this job opportunity - apply today!

📢 We’re hiring!

The University of Warwick is recruiting for a full-time, permanent academic position in Psychology, available at either:

🔹 Assistant Professor
🔹 Associate Professor

📅 Application deadline: 5th April 2026

So happy to see this paper published! It represents by far the most fun and enriching experience I've had as a grad student. Reading philosophy is fun, but spending most of my week in a lab with dogs of all breeds and personalities? Nothing beats that.

Couldn't have asked for better mentors!!!

Two PhD positions in dolphin genomics and behavioral ecology are available at the University of Zurich, starting May/June 2026. Applicants must have relevant degrees and experience. More info: www.michaelkruetzenlab.org. #phd

We are recruiting a Lecturer in Psychology: mss.port.ac.uk/ce0732li_web... and a Teaching Fellow: mss.port.ac.uk/ce0732li_web.... Come and join the Centre for Comparative and Evolutionary Psychology 🐶🐵🐴🐘🕷️🧒 www.port.ac.uk/research/res...

Participate in dog studies! The Canine Minds Collaborative, established in 2023, is a collaboration between researchers at Johns Hopkins University and local pet owners, teaming up to advance our understanding of canine minds...

If you are in the Baltimore area and would like to help us with our effort to understand how dogs think, sign your dog up to participate in our studies: www.social-cognitive-origins.com/participate-...

With wonderful collaborators, including @gibbonitathought.bsky.social, and support from @jhuartssciences.bsky.social

Do dogs rationally infer the causes of failed actions? Humans regularly reason about the causes of events and actions we observe in the world, both to infer the physical properties and mechanisms of objects, and to understand others’ actions. Evidence for...

We build on seminal work w/ human infants by @hyogweon.bsky.social & @miteccl.bsky.social but find no evidence that dogs can correctly infer the social or physical causes for a failed action, even when interacting with a highly familiar kind of object (pet gates)

journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

When something doesn't work properly, can your dog tell if the object is broken or if you just don't know how to use it?

I'm pleased to share my group @jhu.edu's first study with pet dogs (!!), now out in @plosone.org

Led by Amalia Bastos: Do dog rationally infer the causes of failed actions? 1/4

The “I” in egalitarianism: Hadza hunter-gatherers averse to inequality primarily when personally unfavorable Abstract. Many economists contend that humans have strong, universal, other-regarding equality preferences with deep evolutionary roots. Indeed, many hunte

📢 New Paper 🚨

Hadza food-sharing is egalitarian, yet offers in giving games have never matched the equitable redistribution seen in real life.

In this study, we allowed people to give *or* take. Lifelike equitable distributions only appeared when people took from peers in surplus.

bit.ly/4kvLOwA

Curious if you have further thoughts, @spiantado.bsky.social!

To your main question, I see a role for analogy in scaffolding the pretend representation but am not sure it's the whole story 4/4

So I don't really know whether Kanzi is likely to literally have an image of the imaginary juice in his mind or instead to have some other more symbolic way of tracking the pretend state. 3/4

We don't exactly know what the qualia is like here, beyond that Kanzi seems able to represent something that he cannot directly perceive. It is often assumed that animals' mental representations are iconic or imagistic in format but few studies have actually tested for representational format 2/4

Interesting! What I think is happening is that Kanzi is able to mentally represent the pretend object & keep this representation separate from his concurrent representation of reality. Analogy in the sense you describe could certainly be part of representing the pretend object in the first place! 1/

I would love to see that happen, but it will likely require different methods that don't involve verbal prompts. We are just mulling ideas around at this stage

A recent article by @chriskrupenye.bsky.social highlights that bonobos share the human ability to imagine.

Find out more about the TWCF-funded “Explaining Other Minds” project: www.templetonworldcharity.org/projects-res...

Read the article below. 👇

📣 New paper alert 🧪 The authors demonstrate that Kanzi the #bonobo tracks the displacement of "invisible" juice, a first of its kind study to examine imagination in nonhuman beings.
Read the paper here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
#GreatApe #AnimalBehavior #CompCogPapers #ComparativePsychology

Thanks to @alexaroblesgil.bsky.social for this beautiful coverage of our new paper in @nytimes.com !

Can bonobos use their imagination? In a series of tea party-like experiments, a bonobo was able to identify imaginary juice and grapes.

Can apes imagine? A tea party-like experiment with a bonobo revealed that the ape could track pretend juice and grapes.

The fascinating research features Kanzi, the late, great primate prodigy!

New story for @nationalgeographic.bsky.social: www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...

Thanks to @jack-tamisiea.bsky.social for this beautiful coverage of our new paper in @nationalgeographic.bsky.social

Thank you! And interesting question! How would you define analogy?

At a Bonobo’s ‘Tea Party,’ Scientists Find Hints of Imagination In a playtime experiment, researchers found that our closest living relatives have the capacity for make-believe, too.

Having an imaginary friend, playing house or daydreaming about the future were long considered uniquely human abilities. Now, scientists have conducted the first study indicating that apes have the ability to play pretend as well.

Hi Michael, I often mention the animals we work with in the acknowledgements but Science has such tight word limits that we didn't end up doing that here. I don't think we can say that Kanzi helped us design the study but he was a great and enthusiastic partner in the research!

Evidence for representation of pretend objects by Kanzi, a language-trained bonobo Secondary representations enable our minds to depart from the here-and-now and generate imaginary, hypothetical, or alternate possibilities that are decoupled from reality, supporting many of our rich...

Find the paper here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

And here is an accessible explanation in JHU's Hub: hub.jhu.edu/2026/02/05/a...

We are grateful to CIFAR, @jhu.edu, and @templetonworld.bsky.social for providing the funds to enable this discovery!

@jhuartssciences.bsky.social

Apes Share Human Ability to Imagine YouTube video by Johns Hopkins University

Imagination in bonobos!

I am thrilled to share a new paper w/ Amalia Bastos, out now in @science.org

We provide the first experimental evidence that a nonhuman animal can follow along a pretend scenario & track imaginary objects. Work w/ Kanzi, the bonobo, at Ape Initiative

youtu.be/NUSHcQQz2Ko

ICE at the polls! Bannon is basically yelling “fire” in a crowded theater here. His objective is to cause chaos (and suppress votes on the left). And it’s already working.

This threat works on multiple levels and doesn’t have to be “real” to serve its purpose.

Let me explain & offer some advice.