Self-control is an important cognitive skill associated with effective decision-making and goal-directed behavior. This ability shows how an individual can overcome immediate gratification to get delayed but better reward.
In humans, exercising self-control is correlated with cognitive performance. Individuals who prefer to delay gratification longer can achieve higher scores in various academic tasks. Measuring the ability to delay gratification is usually done on children in an experimental design known as the marshmallow test.
Various studies have been conducted to test self-control ability in higher ranks of animals such as primates. Recently, scientists expressed their interest in trying the cognitive performance of non-primate groups.
Cephalopod Cognitive Test in Mollusks
In a study published by the Royal Society, researchers investigated self-control and learning performance in a cuttlefish with a donut-shaped brain. The cephalopod cognitive test was a version of a psychological experiment originally designed for children. The only difference is that cuttlefish cannot be told the rules, so researchers had to familiarize them with the reward structure.
A reversal-learning task was used to help the cuttlefish associate reward with two types of stimuli. Then the self-controlled test was conducted by presenting a delay maintenance task. The animal under study maintained delay durations for up to 50-130 seconds, resisting taking food immediately to get a better reward later. The cephalopod cognitive test results show that cuttlefish have the same self-control as animals with bigger brains.
In this research, scientists had proven that cuttlefish could refrain from eating crab meat in the morning when they learned that their most preferred meal, shrimp, will be given later during dinner.
A similar test was also conducted on a cephalopod by a team of researchers from the Department of Biology and Evolution of Marine Organisms in Italy to investigate the responses of octopuses toward their own reflected images. Scientists are interested in octopus brains because they believe they can provide information on what alien intelligence might look like. These animals share a common ancestor with humans 600 million years ago in the evolutionary tree, and they exemplify advanced life forms in a separate evolutionary branch.
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How Intelligent Are Cephalopods?
A cephalopod refers to any class Cephalopoda member, including squids, cuttlefish, octopus, and nautilus. They are characterized by merging head and foot with a ring of tentacles or arms surrounding the head. This group is known for having the most complex brain among invertebrate animals.
Intelligence is generally described as acquiring, retrieving, and recontextualizing information and conceptual skills. Although these criteria are not easy to measure in animals, cephalopods are known for having the most complex brain and for being the.
These large-brained mollusks demonstrate cognitive attributes that can be compared to some vertebrates, such as advanced perception, learning abilities, and highly developed memory. Since they are renowned for performing flexible behavior, they are also associated with complex cognition, such as mental attribution, causal reasoning, and future planning.
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