Cuttlefish, like humans and chimpanzees, refuse food in search of delicious food

The research was conducted at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole. 

The authors of the work used

an adapted version of the Stanford Marshmallow Test, where children were given the choice of immediately eating a reward (1 marshmallow) or waiting to get more.

Cuttlefish in a new study were able to waitbest reward and endured for up to 50–130 seconds. This is comparable to the results  large-brained vertebrates such as chimpanzees, crows and parrots. The cuttlefish that waited the longest for food also showed better cognitive performance in learning tests.

In this experiment, cuttlefish were trainedassociate a visual signal with a food reward. Then the situation changed, and the reward became associated with a different signal. The cuttlefish that learned both of these associations the fastest were the ones that controlled themselves better than the others. 

Finding this connection between self-control andlearning in a species outside the primate lineage is an example of convergent evolution, where completely different evolutionary processes lead to the same cognitive feature.

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