Tea time... with an ape?

Summary

Podcast Summary: Short Wave – "Tea time... with an ape?" (February 17, 2026)

Main Theme

This episode explores whether the human capacity for imagination—specifically the ability to pretend or envision scenarios beyond the here and now—is unique to us or shared with our close primate relatives. Science correspondent Nate Rott dives into a groundbreaking experiment involving Kanzi, a famous bonobo renowned for his communication skills, and discusses what a series of pretend tea parties tells us about the evolutionary roots of imagination.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction to Kanzi, the Remarkable Bonobo

• Speaker: Nate Rott
  Timestamp: 00:20–01:42
  • Kanzi was a bonobo born and raised in captivity, and achieved fame for his ability to communicate with humans via symbols and understand spoken English.
  • Studies showed Kanzi could comprehend and respond to more than 600 spoken instructions, often outperforming a two-year-old human.
  • Quote: “A study published in 1993 found that when Kanzi was eight years old, he could outperform a two year old human when given more than 600 spoken instructions.” – Nate Rott (01:14)

2. Why Imagination Matters

• Speaker: Chris Krupena (Cognitive Scientist, Johns Hopkins University)
  Timestamp: 01:48–02:27
  • Imagination is seen as a uniquely human trait—enabling us to consider the past, future, and hypothetical situations.
  • The experiment’s goal: to assess whether apes can also entertain imaginary or pretend scenarios.

3. The Tea Party Test – Experiment Design

• Speakers: Nate Rott, Chris Krupena
  Timestamp: 04:24–06:03
  • The experiment adapts methods used in child psychology: staged tea parties where pretend juice is “poured” into cups, and the participant is asked to track the imaginary liquid.
  • With Kanzi, researchers recreated this with sterile tea parties, videotaping his responses as he tracked where the “juice” should be.
  • Quote: “With Kanzi, we were able to do more or less the exact same thing by setting up a series of very sterile looking tea parties and recording videos of the sessions.” – Chris Krupena (06:03)

4. Imagination and Its Practical Role in Development

• Speaker: Kristen Andrews (Philosophy Professor, York University/CUNY)
  Timestamp: 06:30–08:07
  • Play is practice for adult life; imagination helps children rehearse social and practical skills.
  • Adults also rely on imagination for decision-making and scientific hypothesis testing.
  • Quote: “What scientists do before they run the experiments is they run them in their imagination. And if they don’t work in their imagination, you save all the time of running it in the real world…” – Kristen Andrews (08:07)

5. Results of the Experiment

• Speakers: Nate Rott, Chris Krupena
  Timestamp: 08:36–09:45
  • In the experiment, Kanzi was able to track "imaginary juice" about 70% of the time, often choosing the correct cup after pretend pourings.
  • This indicates he could mentally represent two states of reality—seeing empty cups, but knowing “imaginatively” that one still held juice.
  • Quote: “Kanzi was able to, in his mind, sort of entertain two versions of reality. On the one hand, he sees two empty cups in front of him... he’s also able to imagine, to pretend that one of them is not.” – Chris Krupena (09:29–09:41)

6. Broader Implications and Future Research

• Speakers: Nate Rott, Chris Krupena
  Timestamp: 10:13–11:50
  • While only one bonobo was studied, this is significant: if even one non-human passes the test, imagination isn’t uniquely human.
  • Existing observational evidence (e.g., chimps treating sticks as dolls) supports the possibility of pretend play being widespread in apes.
  • More research with larger samples and other species is needed for broader conclusions.
  • Quote: “All you need is one clear demonstration to say, no, it’s not unique to humans.” – Chris Krupena (10:50)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Kanzi’s ability to point, to answer questions and communicate made him the ideal candidate for an experiment... testing for something that had never ever been studied in a controlled setting before. The ability for an ape or really any non human animal to imagine.”
  — Nate Rott (01:48)

• “This ability to sort of go beyond the present, go beyond reality in your mind, is a sort of remarkable cognitive feat.”
  — Chris Krupena (09:45)

• “Play is really important practice for doing things in the adult world.”
  — Kristen Andrews (06:45)

• “Daydreaming can save you time. But don’t zone out yet!”
  — Nate Rott (08:18, with playful Short Wave tone)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 00:20–01:42: Introduction to Kanzi and his communication skills
• 02:05–02:27: Introduction to the concept of imagination in humans and animals
• 04:24–06:03: Experimental design—tea parties for testing imagination
• 06:30–08:07: The cognitive value and real-world utility of imagination
• 08:36–09:45: Kanzi’s performance in the “imaginary juice” experiment
• 10:13–11:50: Broader significance and limitations of the study

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Concluding Thoughts

The episode presents a playful yet profound investigation into the evolutionary roots of imagination, suggesting that the seeds of “pretend” may exist beyond our own species. The research opens doors for further studies on animal minds and challenges assumptions about what makes humans unique.

For those interested, additional materials—including video of Kanzi and further discussion on bonobos—are referenced in the NPR show notes.

Transcript

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

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[Nate Rott]

Hey, shortwavers. Science correspondent Nate Rott here filling in for Emily and Regina. I want to start today by introducing you to a pretty remarkable and unique ape who has been on NPR before.

[Chris Krupena]

Kanzi is a bonobo, a smaller cousin of the chimpanzee. He's the world's most famous bonobo and a bit of a show off.

[Nate Rott]

Kanzi was born in captivity and he lived in research environments his entire life. He died last year at 44. RIP Kanzi. And what made him so famous, what got him full page pictures in Time magazine and National Geographic, was his ability to communicate with humans using symbols and his comprehension of the English language. Here's a video National Geographic did of him.

[Chris Krupena]

Look right at the camera. Good boy.

[Nate Rott]

You're doing so good. Just a couple more. I realize as they talk to Kanzi, he understands almost everything they say. A study published in 1993 found that when Kanzi was eight years old, he could outperform a two year old human when given more than 600 spoken instructions.

[Chris Krupena]

We don't know exactly what he grasped, but you could ask him a question and often he would respond in the way that he should.

[Nate Rott]

Chris Krupena is a cognitive scientist who focuses on animal minds at Johns Hopkins University. He worked with Kanzi before he died.

[Chris Krupena]

And one of the ways he could respond is through pointing. And that's not a common behavior for apes. They don't typically point in the way that humans do.

[Nate Rott]

Kanzi's ability to point, to answer questions and communicate made him the ideal candidate for an experiment that Chris wanted to run, testing for something that had never ever been studied in a controlled setting before. The ability for an ape or really any non human animal to imagine.

[Chris Krupena]

We think of imagination as being really fundamentally human. In our minds, we can sort of depart from the here and now. We can think about other worlds, other times, the past, the future, and even entertain pretend or imaginary scenarios. So this feels like something that is sort of so fundamental to our mental experience as a species.

[Nate Rott]

But is the ability to imagine as unique to us as we think? Or can our closest living relatives do it too? Today on the show, how scientists used a series of pretend tea parties to help answer that question and what their findings potentially say about the evolutionary roots of imagination. You're listening to Shortwave, the Science podcast from NPR.

[Announcer/Promo Voice]

Foreign. This message comes from WBUR Podcasts. No other organ brings together science and spirituality quite like the human brain. Our thinking is very different from what we have imagined. Studies about the brain are at heart studies about ourselves. So why, even after centuries of research, has the brain still remained such a stubborn and elusive mystery? Listen to OnPoint for the special series Brain Waves wherever you get your podcasts. This message comes from Mint Mobile. This holiday season, stop overpaying for wireless and Switch to Mint Shop. 50% off unlimited [e-mail] Switch limited time offer upfront payment of $45 for 3 months, $90 for 6 months or $180 for 12 months. Taxes and fees Extra initial plan term only above 35 GB. Network may slow when busy capable dev availability, speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com this message comes from NPR.

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[Nate Rott]

Okay, so we have an ape with a pretty good grasp of English. He can answer questions and ask for objects by pointing much in the way my 14 month old points at the book Goodnight Gorilla every night, even though we've read it a thousand times and I am so over it? I asked Chris Krupena, the cognitive scientist we heard from earlier, how the heck do you turn pointing and language comprehension into an experiment that tests for something as intangible as imagination that allows us.

[Chris Krupena]

To in many ways like ask him what he thinks or knows in more or less the same way that you might ask a human child.

[Nate Rott]

And it turns out, Chris says scientists have been asking human children questions to better understand the imagination for a really long time.

[Chris Krupena]

Kids will have tea parties with their dolls. They might have an imaginary friend. They might play house with their friends. So they're showing these roots of imagination within the first years of life. And the way that we study that capacity in them is to engage them in the kinds of pretend scenarios that are familiar to them.

[Nate Rott]

Chris and his co author Amalia Bastos, a cognitive scientist at the University of St. Andrews in the UK, found a series of studies from the 1980s that did just that by having a group of kids participate in pretend tea parties.

[Chris Krupena]

Where an experimenter will set up a tea set and then they'll sort of pretend to pour, you know, fake juice into various locations or pour it out and they'll ask the kid, where's the imaginary juice? And kids will often in those tasks point to indicate their comprehension and to indicate where they think this imaginary object remains. And so with Kanzi, we were able to do more or less the exact.

[Nate Rott]

Same thing by setting up a series of very sterile looking tea parties and recording videos of the sessions.

[Chris Krupena]

Let's make it.

[Nate Rott]

Let's find the juice.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Okay.

[Nate Rott]

Now before we start pouring any imaginary juice, let's hold onto our teacups for a second. I think it's worth taking a minute to explain the significance of being able to imagine things that aren't real. In other words, to play pretend. It's a super helpful cognitive ability. Take a kid playing house.

[Kristen Andrews]

We think of play sometimes as, you know, not very functional. Oh, they're just playing like, okay, thank goodness I don't have to take care of my kids because they're just playing over there. But we know from child development that play is really important practice for doing things in the adult world.

[Nate Rott]

Kristen Andrews is a philosophy professor at the City University of New York and at York University in Toronto. She focuses on animal minds too.

[Kristen Andrews]

I actually hold a chair called the Research Chair in Animal Minds.

[Nate Rott]

As a philosopher with a wicked cool title, Kristen spends a lot of time thinking about the abilities of the mind. And she says imagination is something that we grown ups use all the time too.

[Kristen Andrews]

So for example, it is really useful to be able to imagine what would happen next when you make a decision. So, you know, I might say, like, I'm very annoyed at this person over here and maybe I want to go punch them in the face. And instead of just punching them in the face and seeing what happens, I may take a second imagine punching them in the face, imagine what happens next, realize that's not very good and not punch the person, right? So I make my decisions based on rolling out scenarios in my head.

[Nate Rott]

Prudent, right? It's the same thing we do when we plan a summer vacation, when we decide what kind of gift to buy a loved one when we stop and put ourselves in another person's shoes.

[Kristen Andrews]

So it's really important socially, but it's also really important scientifically. When we do science, we form hypotheses about what might happen.

[Nate Rott]

That's like the exact definition of imagination, right? You're imagining what might happen.

[Kristen Andrews]

That's right. What scientists do before they run the experiments is they run them in their imagination. And if they don't work in their imagination, you save all the time of running it in the real world, making them.

[Nate Rott]

And really all of us, because we all do this more efficient with our time. Yeah, that's right. Daydreaming can save you time. But don't zone out yet. Since we're already back on the topic of scientists and experiments, let's rejoin that imaginary tea party. Hey, let's find the juice.

[Announcer/Promo Voice]

Okay.

[Nate Rott]

In the first video of Chris's experiment, Kanzi is sitting in an enclosure. The researcher, or partner, as Chris calls him, sits just on the other side with a wooden table in between.

[Chris Krupena]

And on the table, the partner would put two empty transparent cups.

[Nate Rott]

That they then pretend to fill with juice from an empty transparent pitcher. Kanzi's watching the whole thing. So we have two transparent cups full of imaginary juice, and then the partner.

[Chris Krupena]

Would take one of the cups and, you know, dump it back out into the pitcher. And at that point, there's only one bit of imaginary juice left in the remaining cup. And the partner pushed the table forward and asked Kanzi, where's the juice?

[Nate Rott]

And about 70% of the time, Chris says Kanzi picked the right one.

[Chris Krupena]

Our findings suggest that Kanzi was able to, in his mind, sort of entertain two versions of reality. On the one hand, he sees two empty cups in front of him. He knows that they're empty, but he's.

[Nate Rott]

Also able to imagine, to pretend that one of them is not.

[Chris Krupena]

This ability to sort of go beyond the present, go beyond reality in your mind, is a sort of remarkable cognitive feat. And it tells us, for one, that very likely, that capacity, those roots of our imagination were present millions of years ago in the common ancestors that we shared with bonobos. And I think it also tells us that there's just much more interesting mental life out there in the world than we previously thought.

[Nate Rott]

Can I ask, obviously, this was a study of one animal, right? An individual. And scientists typically want a broader sample size, many examples, to be able to draw kind of a broad conclusion. Does the scale of this study limit its findings in any way, do you think?

[Chris Krupena]

Yeah. So it is true that this study only had one individual. And what we can say from it depends a little bit on what your questions are. One question you might have is, is this form of imagination unique to humans? And I think for that question, all you need is one clear demonstration to say, no, it's not unique to humans.

[Nate Rott]

To Chris, this new study is that one clear demonstration.

[Chris Krupena]

Now, the broader question might be, is it the case that all other apes share this capacity too, or at least all other members of his species, bonobos. And here I think that is an empirical question where we do need more research.

[Nate Rott]

But he notes there's reason to suspect that they can't. For decades, researchers and people have worked with apes have observed various species doing things that very much look like pretend play.

[Chris Krupena]

Young female chimpanzees have been observed carrying around sticks or logs in ways that look like they're treating them like a doll or a baby.

[Nate Rott]

But he notes, there's reason to suspect that they can't. For decades, researchers and people who work with apes have observed various species doing things that very much look like pretend play.

[Chris Krupena]

So there's reason to think that this could be abundant. But we needed these kind of experiments to really show for sure that it's within the capacity of these animals, which.

[Nate Rott]

Is why he very much intends to keep studying this with other apes in the future. Well, Chris, thanks so much for doing this research, man. It's super interesting.

[Chris Krupena]

Thanks for having me. It's super fun to talk to you about it.

[Nate Rott]

If you like this episode, follow us on the NPR app or wherever else you may be listening from. It helps us out and means that you won't miss out on any new episode episodes. Also, I did a whole digital story complete with videos of Kanzi. We'll link to it and Chris's study in our show notes. So go check them out. Plus some other interesting episodes on bonobos and the evolution of niceness and what insights Monkees have for the evolution of human speech. This episode was produced by Hannah Chin and Arun Nair and edited by our showrunner, Republic Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts. Jimmy Keeley was the audio engineer. I'm Nate Rott. Thanks for listening to Shortwave from npr.

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