Cuttlefish, like their nearest relatives octopuses and squid, are astonishingly intelligent. They ve proven this again by delaying gratification in return for a greater reward.
In 1972, Professor Walter Mischel conducted a now-famous test, putting a marshmallow before a child between three and six years old, telling them he was going to leave the room – but if the food survived his absence, they could have two instead. Mischel then followed up his subjects as adults and found those who held on for the greater prize were generally more successful in life. Ironically Mischel s interpretation of the reasons for this relationship may be wrong for people, but right for marine mollusks.
In an amazing show of self-control, cuttlefish can resist the impulse to eat a morsel of food if it means getting to eat two morsels later on, a new study shows.
In experiments, the marine molluscs passed a variation of the marshmallow test – originally used in the 1970s to measure a child s ability to delay gratification.
In the original Stanford experiment, pre-school kids were given one marshmallow and told they could eat it straight away, or, if they waited 20 minutes, have two marshmallows instead.
For this new study, scientists performed a fishy version of the legendary experiment using shrimp instead of marshmallows.