The Symbolic Monkey? Animals Can Comprehend And Use Symbols, Study Of Tufted Capuchins Suggests

From paintings and photographs to coins and credit cards, we are constantly surrounded by symbolic artifacts. The mental representation of symbols -- objects that arbitrarily represent other objects -- ultimately affords the development of language, and certainly played a decisive role in the evolution of our hominid ancestors. Can other animal species also comprehend and use symbols? New evidence demonstrates symbolic reasoning in tufted capuchin monkeys.

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