Bonobos show evidence of tracking what another individual knows, and great apes—including bonobos—have also shown sensitivity to another’s mistaken perspective in eye-tracking experiments. These findings are important evidence of theory-of-mind precursors, but they do not establish that bonobos understand beliefs in the same explicit, human-like way people do.
What “theory of mind” means
Theory of mind is not a single skill. It refers to abilities to attribute mental states—such as goals, desires, intentions, knowledge and beliefs—to others, and to use those attributions to anticipate what they may do. An animal can show sensitivity to another’s goal or knowledge without necessarily demonstrating an explicit understanding of that individual’s beliefs.
That distinction matters when interpreting bonobo experiments. Pointing, looking and other actions are observable signs of perspective sensitivity; they do not directly reveal how an animal represents another mind.
How bonobos communicate when a person is ignorant
In a preregistered study published in PNAS in 2025, bonobos watched food being hidden beneath one of several cups. A human partner was responsible for finding it. In some trials, the partner had seen where the food was hidden; in others, he had not.
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The bonobos pointed more often, and began pointing sooner, when the partner did not know the food’s location than when he did. Their pointing accuracy was above chance. The authors reported a significant difference in whether bonobos pointed between ignorance and knowledge trials (P = 0.004; odds ratio 0.29, 95% confidence interval 0.12–0.67) and in point latency (P = 0.005; beta 1.51, 95% confidence interval 1.13–2.02).
The result supports the idea that bonobos can adjust communication to a partner’s knowledge state in this task. It is stronger than simply finding the food themselves: their communication changed depending on what the partner had or had not witnessed. But the study involved captive bonobos communicating with a cooperative human, so it does not establish how broadly this ability operates in wild bonobo social life.
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What false-belief eye-tracking experiments show
A different line of research has tested whether apes anticipate an actor’s behavior when that actor has a mistaken view of events. In an implicit eye-tracking task, an actor hid an object and then left. While the actor was away, the object was moved. When the actor returned, researchers recorded where the apes looked in anticipation.
Bonobos, chimpanzees and orangutans looked toward the location that matched the actor’s outdated belief about where the object was, rather than simply the object’s new location. A 2024 review by Brooker and colleagues lists 15 bonobos and 19 chimpanzees in the 2016 study. This is evidence of sensitivity to another’s perspective in an implicit looking task; it is not proof that apes consciously or explicitly reason about false beliefs as humans do.
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How the evidence compares across abilities
| Ability or evidence | What has been observed | What it supports—and what it does not establish |
|---|---|---|
| Goals and intentions | Reviews describe bonobos as interpreting goal-directed behavior; some comparative tasks report stronger performance than chimpanzees on understanding others’ goals and intentions. | Consistent with sensitivity to others’ actions and aims; not by itself evidence of explicit belief reasoning. |
| Another individual’s knowledge | In the 2025 captive study, bonobos pointed more often and sooner when a human partner was ignorant of a hidden food location. | Supports flexible communication informed by a partner’s knowledge in the tested setting; does not establish unrestricted mind-reading or generalize automatically to wild groups. |
| False beliefs | In an implicit eye-tracking task, apes looked toward the location consistent with an actor’s outdated belief. | Supports implicit perspective tracking; does not demonstrate explicit, language-like false-belief understanding. |
Do bonobos understand false beliefs like humans do?
Not conclusively. The eye-tracking results are described as implicit false-belief sensitivity, while the 2024 review by Brooker and colleagues distinguishes that from explicit false-belief understanding. The review says that human perspective-taking capacities, including explicit false-belief understanding, have not been demonstrated in other species.
So the careful conclusion is that bonobos show some abilities that may be foundations for theory of mind. Current findings do not show that bonobos possess the same explicit concept of belief that humans use when explaining what someone thinks, especially when that thought is wrong.
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Why setting and method matter
- Behavior is indirect evidence. A point or anticipatory look can reveal sensitivity to another’s perspective, but cannot alone tell researchers whether an ape represents beliefs in the same way a person does.
- The settings are specific. The knowledge-and-pointing result came from captive bonobos interacting with a cooperative human. Its reach beyond that task and population remains uncertain.
- Samples do not establish prevalence. These are experimental findings, not estimates of what proportion of all bonobos have a particular ability. No population-wide or wild-population percentage is established by the cited work.
The 2024 review emphasizes that the extent of great-ape perspective-taking remains unclear and calls for studies across more groups and living conditions. That caution leaves room for stronger conclusions as methods and samples expand, without diminishing what the existing experiments do show.
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