The transition to a cooked diet represents an important shift in human ecology and evolution. Cooking requires a set of sophisticated cognitive abilities, including causal reasoning, self-control and anticipatory planning. Do humans uniquely possess the cognitive capacities needed to cook food? We address whether one of humans' closest relatives, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), possess the domain-general cognitive skills needed to cook. Across nine studies, we show that chimpanzees: (i) prefer cooked foods; (ii) comprehend the transformation of raw food that occurs when cooking, and generalize this causal understanding to new contexts; (iii) will pay temporal costs to acquire cooked foods; (iv) are willing to actively give up possession of raw foods in order to transform them; and (v) can transport raw food as well as save their raw food in anticipation of future opportunities to cook. Together, our results indicate that several of the fundamental psychological abilities necessary to engage in cooking may have been shared with the last common ancestor of apes and humans, predating the control of fire.
Warneken&Rosati_Experiment1
Subject data from behavioral experiment with chimpanzees in Warneken & Rosati, "Cognitive capacities for cooking in chimpanzees." Experiment 1: Preference for cooked food.
Warneken&Rosati_Experiment2
Subject data from behavioral experiment with chimpanzees in Warneken & Rosati, "Cognitive capacities for cooking in chimpanzees." Experiment 2: Patience when waiting for cooked food.
Warneken&Rosati_Experiment3
Subject data from behavioral experiment with chimpanzees in Warneken & Rosati, "Cognitive capacities for cooking in chimpanzees." Experiment 3: Preference for cooking device.
Warneken&Rosati_Experiment4
Subject data from behavioral experiment with chimpanzees in Warneken & Rosati, "Cognitive capacities for cooking in chimpanzees." Experiment 4: Will chimpanzees cook their own food?
Warneken&Rosati_Experiment5a
Subject data from behavioral experiment with chimpanzees in Warneken & Rosati, "Cognitive capacities for cooking in chimpanzees." Experiment 5a: Replication-Preference for cooked food.
Warneken&Rosati_Experiment5b
Subject data from behavioral experiment with chimpanzees in Warneken & Rosati, "Cognitive capacities for cooking in chimpanzees." Experiment 5b: Replication-Preference for cooking device.
Warneken&Rosati_Experiment5c
Subject data from behavioral experiment with chimpanzees in Warneken & Rosati, "Cognitive capacities for cooking in chimpanzees." Experiment 5c: Replication-Will chimpanzees cook their own food?
Warneken&Rosati_Experiment6a
Subject data from behavioral experiment with chimpanzees in Warneken & Rosati, "Cognitive capacities for cooking in chimpanzees." Experiment 6a: Do chimpanzees prefer cooked carrots?
Warneken&Rosati_Experiment6b
Subject data from behavioral experiment with chimpanzees in Warneken & Rosati, "Cognitive capacities for cooking in chimpanzees." Experiment 6b: Do cooking skills generalize to other foods?
Warneken&Rosati_Experiment7
Subject data from behavioral experiment with chimpanzees in Warneken & Rosati, "Cognitive capacities for cooking in chimpanzees." Experiment 7: Do chimpanzees selectively cook edible items?
Warneken&Rosati_Experiment8
Subject data from behavioral experiment with chimpanzees in Warneken & Rosati, "Cognitive capacities for cooking in chimpanzees." Experiment 8: Will chimpanzees transport food to cook it?
Warneken&Rosati_Experiment9
Subject data from behavioral experiment with chimpanzees in Warneken & Rosati, "Cognitive capacities for cooking in chimpanzees." Experiment 9: Will chimpanzees save their food for future cooking?