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, 20130486, published 29 September 2014369 2014 Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B
Mathias Osvath and Gema Martin-Ordas
and the empirical case of the great apes
The future of future-oriented cognition in non-humans: theory
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Opinion piece
Cite this article: Osvath M, Martin-Ordas G.
2014 The future of future-oriented cognition in
non-humans: theory and the empirical case of
the great apes. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 369:
20130486.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0486
One contribution of 18 to a Theme Issue
‘The principles of goal-directed decision-
making: from neural mechanisms to
computation and robotics’.
Subject Areas:
behaviour, cognition, evolution
Keywords:
mental time travel, episodic memories,
episodic foresight, animal cognition,
primate cognition, animal planning
Author for correspondence:
Mathias Osvath
e-mail: mathias.osvath@lucs.lu.se
The future of future-oriented cognition in
non-humans: theory and the empirical
case of the great apes
Mathias Osvath and Gema Martin-Ordas
Cognitive Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
One of the most contested areas in the field of animal cognition is non-human
future-oriented cognition. We critically examine key underlying assumptions
in the debate, which is mainly preoccupied with certain dichotomous positions,
the most prevalent being whether or not ‘real’ future orientation is uniquely
human. We argue that future orientation is a theoretical construct threatening
to lead research astray. Cognitive operations occur in the present moment and
can be influenced only by prior causation and the environment, at the same
time that most appear directed towards future outcomes. Regarding the current
debate, future orientation becomes a question of where on various continua cog-
nition becomes ‘truly’ future-oriented. We question both the assumption that
episodic cognition is the most important process in future-oriented cognition
and the assumption that future-oriented cognition is uniquely human. We
review the studies on future-oriented cognition in the great apes to find little
doubt that our closest relatives possess such ability. We conclude by urging
that future-oriented cognition not be viewed as expression of some select set
of skills. Instead, research into future-oriented cognition should be approached
more like research into social and physical cognition.
1. Introduction
We humans have the distinctive feeling of being able mentally to pre-experience
future events. We readily and continually make plans for future goals. Many
think of this cognitive future orientation as one of our most advanced, and
unique, cognitive feats. Future-oriented cognition, in a sense, presents a
puzzle for cognitive science: the future does not exist, neither does backward
causation [1]. The future cannot influence a current behaviour or thought.
Notions such as foresight or future orientation are mere metaphors from the
spatial domain. Cognition is always based on past causation: the products of
evolution, ontogeny and individual experiences. At the same time, anticipating
and influencing future outcomes is at the core of cognition and probably the
main reason why cognition evolved. Few would disagree that, for cognition
to have evolved, it must have given organisms a readiness that affects their
future. Numerous researchers regard the brain as essentially a prediction-
making simulator of the environment [2].
If one cannot think about the future in any real sense, i.e. being causally
affected by it, and if cognition evolved to prepare organisms for forthcoming
changes, what is the meaning in contemporary research of terms such as ‘foresight’
or ‘future-oriented cognition’? The past decade has witnessed an upsurge in
studies on future-oriented cognition in human and, not the least, non-human ani-
mals. However—as is usually the case in fledgling research—no all-encompassing
definitions of the core phenomena exist, although one finds some agreement over
which criteria qualify cognitive processes as ‘more’ future-oriented than others.
One overarching criterion—to which most other criteria relate—is flexibility
[3,4]. The behaviours must link to possible upcoming events in a non-stereotypical
way, taking into account specific elements or novel combinations of those
elements. Such behaviours are more easily understood as what they are not:
purely innately released or merely associatively learned responses. The behaviours
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must, in some sense—again metaphorically—be more proac-
tive than reactive. Another apparent consensus criterion is
contextual detachment [4,5]. A future-oriented behaviour can be
detached from immediate perceptual input or from psychologi-
cal or physiological states relating to the situation in which the
future-oriented behaviour is performed.
Obviously, more detailed criteria exist, e.g. intentionality
and sense of time, but we believe the above criteria capture
the essence of foresightedness or future orientation in the cur-
rent debates on animal cognition. As we show, however,
these criteria are far from clear-cut.
The research into and debate over future-oriented cogni-
tion has revolved closely around the so-called episodic
cognitive system and the mental time travel it is said to
enable. Many have argued vigorously that this cognitive
skill is uniquely human; and, therefore, only the human
animal is capable of future-oriented cognition as captured
by the above criteria [4– 6].
In this paper, we describe some of the key cognitive systems
believed to support future-oriented cognition while critically
examining certain assumptions in the current debate. Review-
ing the research on future-oriented cognition in our closest
living relatives—the great apes—we question whether these
cognitive skills are, in fact, exclusively human. Our aim,
through these examples, is to show that research into future-
oriented cognition in non-human animals must broaden
beyond the current ill-founded dichotomies if we wish truly
to understand how cognition affectsthe future in various ways.
2. The episodic system
(a) Consciousness and mental time travel
The theoretical roots of much of the contemporary cognitive-
foresight research lie in memory research. In 1972, Tulving [7] pro-
posed a distinction between semantic and episodic memory,
where semantic memory is our database of knowledge about
the world. It does not register perceptible properties of inputs,
but rather the cognitive referents of such inputs. Episodic
memory, on the other hand, receives and stores information on
temporally structured episodes or events, along with the spatio-
temporal relationships betweenthem,i.e.whathappened,
where and when. Tulving thought that episodic memory can
only store perceptible properties, always in autobiographical refer-
ence to the already existing content of the episodic memory store.
Tulving gradually [8,9] refined the defining contents of
these memory systems, referring to them as a memory
system allowing us mental travel backwards in time, implying
a sense of past. One notable extension on the original model
was that a certain form of consciousness is a necessary correlate
to episodic memories—what Tulving dubbed autonoetic (‘self-
knowing’) consciousness, a type of first-person phenomenal
experience of detached perceptions existing only as constructs
in the mind, based on previous experiences, such that the
feeling of them belongsto your temporal self [9]. This contrasts
with the semantic system, where knowledge about facts is not
subjectively tied but simply involves awareness of familiarity
of knowing, i.e. noetic consciousness.
Tulving early on argued that episodic memory is not only
oriented towards the past, but it also allows construction of
possible future events [9]. Meanwhile, Suddendorf & Corballis
[10] took Tulving’s backward-time-travel metaphor further,
coining the expression mental time travel both to emphasize
the temporally dual nature of the episodic system and, more
importantly, to capture the phenomenality when one remem-
bers or when one thinks about the future. A traveller always
travels from a first-person perspective; a mental time traveller
makes excursions to past or future in the same way. The
poetic turn of phrase stuck. Much research on memory and
foresight in animals came to focus on whether some non-
human animals are mental time travellers. Ample evidence
from both psychology and neuroscience indeed shows that
the episodic system is involved both in reconstructing past
events and constructing possible future scenarios (for a
review, see e.g. [11]).
However, the assumption of subjective experience as a
necessary functional part of mental time travel has hampered
animal research. For example, the series of clever studies on
memory and foresight in corvids performed by Clayton
and co-workers [12–17] show highly flexible behaviour, but
cannot strictly be viewed as revealing operations of an episo-
dic system, because any correlating phenomenal experiences
cannot be measured. To avoid entangling themselves in the
question of subjectivity, they drew on Tulving’s earliest cri-
terion for episodic memory, where the ability—in an
integrated and flexible fashion—to remember information
on the what, where and when relating to an event was the
defining factor, unrelated to any consciousness. However,
this approach was criticized on the grounds that the capacity
to remember what, where and when is neither necessary nor
sufficient for mental time travel [4]; moreover, one could, in
principle, use only the semantic system and remember
what, where and when as strictly factual information [18].
This is one example of how the question of phenomenal
experience draws attention away from the central question
of how memories and future-oriented cognition work, turning
it instead into a dichotomous question about human unique-
ness (for similar ideas, see [19]). As a remedy, we wish to
point out why the study of animal episodic systems should
not (currently) be part of the study of animal consciousness.
Subjective experience is justly treated with caution in animal
cognition research for two main reasons. The first is the lack of a
detailed model for what, in computational or neurological
terms, constitutes subjective experience. We cannot as yet, in
any scientifically useful sense, identify the physical principles
behind phenomenal sensation. The second is our failure to
identify what subjective experience is for, either ultimately or
proximately. What fitness-raising benefits does a creature gain
from subjective experience: what it can do in comparison with
a ‘mindless’ cousin living in the same biological niche? No
firmly grounded theories as yet exist. The possibility arises
that subjective experience is a mere, non-functional by-product
of other processes.
These problems obviously also apply to humans. Never-
theless, it is agreed that linguistic reports of subjective
experience are sufficient proof of their existence, in line with
the comforting non-solipsistic belief that one is not alone in
the world as a conscious agent. With regards to the human epi-
sodic system, this raises no concerns; it is valid to assume that
human episodic processes correlate to subjective experiences.
Difficulties arise when confusing correlation with causation.
Tulving [5] and Suddendorf & Corballis [4] explicitly view sub-
jective experience as functional in episodic recollection and
foresight even though no empirical evidence exists showing
what subjective experiences do, or whether they are mere epi-
phenomena. Subjective experiences might well be functional;
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currently, we simply do not know. Therefore, for now, they
have little room in investigations of future-oriented cognition
in non-human animals. If we cannot distinguish what non-
linguistic behaviours, if any, are a necessary consequence of
subjective experience, then obviously we cannot identify
them. We should focus instead on what is known, behaviour-
ally and neurobiologically, about the structure of the episodic
cognitive system.
Our point is easily illustrated by analogy. Research into
animal vision is highly productive [20], with no need to
infer whether the animals are phenomenally conscious of
what meets their eyes—not even when studying colour
vision! Some animal-vision scientists may think that their
subjects have phenomenal experience, whereas others do
not, but this has no bearing on the empirical research,
which is based on behaviour and physiology. The same prin-
ciple should apply to the study of episodic abilities and
future-oriented cognition.
(b) What is the difference between a memory and a
foresight—really?
At first glance, the difference between episodic memory and
episodic foresight is clear: memories are about the past, fore-
sights about the future. However, this dichotomy deserves
some consideration, as it might influence our view on
future orientation in cognition. Remember that the future
does not yet exist and therefore cannot influence cognition,
whereas the past exists for us in the current moment only
through causal chains that have left traces in our cognition.
Plenty of evidence suggests that episodic memories are
mere reconstructions of past events and not exact reproduc-
tions of what occurred [21]. Episodic foresights are
obviously constructions as well, based on previous inputs.
As we have mentioned, a large mechanistic overlap exists
between these two types of constructions. Some have
argued that the main evolutionary advantage of the episodic
system is enabling planning for the future [4,5]. Klein [22]
notes that memories themselves are for the future; pondering
on the past with no consequences for the future carries little
in the way of fitness benefits. Memories ensure that one acts
appropriately wherever the current situation resembles a past
situation; something in the current situation must cue the
memory retrieval. In this way, memories are part of future-
oriented cognition, as they make us act in a way that affects
the future outcome. One can also use the recalled information
to anticipate a future situation without needing to project
oneself into an episodically constructed event [23,24].
Remembering the last time, I forgot my keys and locked
myself out of my apartment does not imply that every time
I take the keys I do so while projecting myself into the
future event of calling the locksmith, even though the behav-
ioural outcome of both situations—imagining the details of
the future event versus just anticipating the negative effects
of forgetting the key—is the same. I bring the keys.
If both memories and foresight are inexact constructs of
past impressions, and if memories are part of future-oriented
cognition, the distinction between memory and foresight
blurs. The episodic system appears to provide a continuum
of types of constructs. Arguably, the more novel the combi-
nations of past impressions in the construct, the more
flexibly creative or future-oriented it becomes, though finding
any quantitative measure of this is difficult.
One approach is to assume that future orientation entails
action towards the future situation is taken before one is
facing the situation. This raises the question of cueing: that is,
something in the current situation—e.g. current goals, mental
or physiological state, environmental stimuli—must facilitate
retrieval of the episodic construct. Such constructs cannot
pop indiscriminately to mind without any functional rel-
evance, as a retrieval mechanism like that would not evolve.
One might therefore question whether such a thing as a com-
plete contextual detachment exists, which is implied by the
criteria for future oriented cognition. Tulving & Thompson
[25] found that memories are more likely to be triggered
when the context at time of encoding matches the context at
retrieval: the encoding specificity principle by which memory
retrieval depends on degree of cue overlap. One, again, ends
up with a continuum, this time of cue types: from perceiving
major parts of situations to more subtle cues. Where on the
continuum does something become more future-oriented?
A related question is whetherone needs to know that a par-
ticular construct appearing in the mind is about the future or
past, or is it enough merely to know whether it has happened
or not? Indeed, at least theoretically, it seems that nothing
prevents an organism from lacking representation of the con-
struct’s temporality altogether, so long as it acts upon the
construct with beneficial consequences. We know little about
why constructs form or how they instigate action. Boyer [26]
suggested that episodic constructs might work as a motiva-
tional break on any motivational states preceding them, the
construct evoking an emotion that outcompetes the earlier
one. This brings the future into the present so that, for example,
a choice between immediate and delayed satisfaction becomes
a choice between two (current) motivations. Temporality
beyond the current moment remains hard to capture.
We believe that the sharp distinction between memory
and foresight—past and future—is based more on folk psy-
chology, introspection and cultural constructs of time than
on any clear, objectively identifiable processes of temporality.
This may be even more important to bear in mind when
studying the cognition of non-human animals, where, in gen-
eral, dichotomous yes-or-no questions appear unfruitful.
3. Beyond the episodic system
Despite substantial intellectual focus on the role of the episodic
system in future-oriented cognition, it is generally agreed that
several cognitive systems must work in concert to enable
future orientation [4,27].With few exceptions [27,28], little
theoretical or empirical effort has been put into the question of
how various cognitive mechanisms interact in future-oriented
behaviours in non-human animals.
Already Tulving recognized that the episodic system would
not function without the semantic system [9]. Without factual
knowledge, episodic constructs would be meaningless (if they
would form at all). Despite this, the semantic and the episodic
systems have been thought of as distinct, with the semantic
system preceding the episodic system in evolution [4,5]. We
believe this to be an oversimplification. We submit that the sys-
tems have coevolved, at least since the last common ancestor of
mammals and birds. We further believe that the semantic
system may be more important to future-oriented cognition
than has been recognized: indeed, the seemingly unparalleled
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foresight skills of humans might largely be the result of an
unusually wide knowledge of the world.
There are good neurobiological reasons to assume that
many animals share abilities to form perceptually detached
constructs in a way similar to those provided by the episodic
system. Humans do not seem to have radically different brain
structures or pathways associated with mental simulations or
episodic abilities. Simulating behaviour and perception most
likely has ancient roots [2]. Allen & Fortin [29] argue that the
episodic system traces back neurobiologically to the ancestor
of all mammals, birds and reptiles. Reviewing the literature
on the regions and pathways related to the episodic system
in animals—the hippocampus, parahippocampal region and
prefrontal cortex with its bird equivalents—they identify
the core properties in (at least) all mammals and birds. They do
not claim that all these animals have what is technically defined
in humans as an episodic system—rather that such a system
would easily have evolved from structures theyall po ssess, struc-
tures that at the very least are able to represent spatiality (the
‘where’-function). Indeed, this seems to be the earliest function
of the hippocampus, existing also in teleost fishes. Behaviourally
based neurobiological studies on rats, who share a last common
ancestor with humans around 92 Ma, suggest that they have a
‘spatial episodic’ system advanced enough to anticipate paths
they have not taken before [30]. Meanwhile, the so-called default
mode network—the wakeful but resting brain’s flow of memories
and daydreams—which in humans is associated with mental
time travel [31], has been shown also to exist in rats [32], monkeys
[33] and chimpanzees [34].
These distant evolutionary roots of the episodic system
make consideration of the semantic and episodic systems’
interaction worthwhile: such interactions might have a coevolu-
tionary history stretching over hundreds of millions of years. It
has been suggested that the contents of episodic memory
invariably involve semantic representation and that a clear
interdependency between episodic and semantic memories
existsat both encoding and retrieval [35]. It follows that episodic
future constructs contain semantic elements. A recent meta-
analysis of 120 neuroimaging studies revealed that semantic
and episodic memory brain networks do indeed overlap [36].
This empirically supports that semantic knowledge is intrinsic
to episodic constructs and that the semantic system plays a
key role in future-oriented cognition [37].
A study on a patient with episodic amnesia revealed
that, even though he could not think about any future events
relating to himself—like what he would do tomorrow—he per-
formed on a normal level when it came to answering questions
about a non-personal future, involving, for example, global
politics or technology [38]. On the other hand, patients with
semantic dementia have been shown to have deficits in their
future thinking [39]. Taken together, these clearly suggest
that both the semantic and episodic systems are necessary for
future-oriented cognition in humans.
Given all of this, it is not obvious why the episodic system
has received more attention than the semantic. It is even
more difficult to understand why the episodic system is
believed to be exclusive to humans and make our future-
oriented cognition surpass that of other animals. Of course,
our future-oriented skills would be extremely poor without
an episodic system; at the same time, without our extensive
knowledge of the world, transferred through language and
stored in texts and the brains of many, we would likewise
not be impressive. A favourite example cited [40] as one of
the most remarkable planning feats by humans is the trip to
the moon. It is, indeed, a good example of what humans can
do with our extensively shared semantic knowledge. When
John F. Kennedy laid out his famous plan with the line ‘we
choose to go to the moon’—which took roughly 3 s to say—he
most likely did not episodically simulate the endeavour that
took 400 000 people a decade to fulfil, if only because the size
of his brain was not large enough to manage such an operation.
When we, humans, perform long-term planning stretching over
years or decades, we probably depend much on our semantic
system. We know about such facts as retirement, academic
degrees and other concepts referring to our future. The flip
side of the coin is that animals exhibiting future-oriented cogni-
tion usually do so in relation to their own subject, characteristic
of the use of an episodic system. Some of the restrictions of
future-oriented cognition in non-human animals might well
be caused by limited factual knowledge of the world.
Here, we have stressed the importance of the semantic
system in trying to balance the picture of what is needed
for what we think of as future-oriented cognition. Several
other mechanisms may have equal importance in various
foresight feats such as executive function, associative learn-
ing, means-end-reasoning and recursion. We touch on some
of these in reviewing what is known about future-oriented
cognition in our closest living relatives: the great apes.
4. Theory and empirical results: great ape
foresight
(a) Behavioural criteria for future-oriented cognition in
great apes
The first serious theorizing on cognitive foresight began
in the field of great-ape psychology almost 100 years ago.
Wolfgang Ko
¨hler, who from 1913 to 1917 studied chimpan-
zees at his anthropoid station, identified empirically
verifiable distinctions for varying complexities of foresight
[41], relating in several aspects to modern hypotheses.
Ko
¨hler observed chimpanzees to anticipate events, which
they appeared to plan. However, all the acts he observed
were made in the face of a visible reward; it would be a
higher achievement, he thought, if such acts were carried
out for goals out of sight. He argued that even more
advanced planning skills would be revealed if the chimpan-
zee disregarded a strong immediate motivation in favour of
the mere expectation of a larger future benefit. Ko
¨hler never
experimented on these issues; however, he suggested a
simple experimental paradigm based on two rooms: one
room would contain a reward, the other the means to get
it. Access to the rooms would be temporally separated:
having entered the ‘reward’ room, the chimpanzee could
not immediately return to the room with the tools. The key
behaviour to watch for was transportation of the requisite
tool, when allowed, to the ‘reward’ room. Tulving [5] and
Suddendorf & Corballis [42], have suggested similar set-
ups. Their versions, however, stress more explicitly that
associative learning, other learning and innate responses
must be precluded. They also take Ko
¨hler’s ideas about con-
textual detachment a bit further: not only must the end goal
be out of sight, but the future-oriented behaviour must not be
instigated by, nor satisfy, a present need or be governed by
present physiological states.
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Perhaps the most famous hypothesis on the necessary be-
havioural criteria and the purportedly uniquely human skill
of future-oriented cognition is Suddendorf & Corballis’ [10]
Bischof-Ko
¨hler hypothesis, which states that animals other
than humans cannot anticipate future needs and drive
states and are therefore bound to a present that is defined
by their current motivational state.
As should have been implied already, their criteria, and the
Bischof-Ko
¨hler hypothesis, are theoretically problematic. In
one way or another, cognitive operations must be instigated
in the current situation; actions directed towards the future
must logically be based on current motivational states. And,
one cannot plan for events containing elements one has no
experience of whatsoever. Nevertheless, their criteria are cur-
rently generally taken as setting a standard for complex,
future-oriented cognition that may be uniquely human. We
review what is known about great-ape foresight in relation to
these criteria, then discuss memory studies that relate to
future-oriented cognition. We also briefly comment on other
work on great apes relating to future-oriented cognition.
(b) Studies of great apes
Great apes have been reported to display complex future-
oriented behaviours in the wild. Chimpanzees in the Taı
¨
forest are known to carry tools to nut-cracking sites even
when those sites are out of view [43,44]. Chimpanzees in
the Goualougo Triangle not only transport tools from one ter-
mite mound to another, but also further transport specific
tools for specific tasks [45]. It seems likely that the chimpan-
zees plan ahead when selecting the appropriate tool for the
task, even though that task is currently out of view [45,46].
Orangutans in the wild have recently been reported as dis-
playing future-oriented behaviours [47]. The study tested
whether males’ long calls are indicative of future travel direc-
tion. The results suggest that males vocalized in the direction
that the female group followed the day after and that male
subordinates avoided. The authors interpret the results as
evidence for future planning: males not only decided the
travel route in advance, but also communicated it to other
members of the group. Although all of these reports are sug-
gestive, they cannot necessarily be understood as fulfilling
the above-mentioned criteria for future-oriented cognition,
not least because of the difficulty controlling for various fac-
tors in the wild. Nevertheless, we find it difficult not to see
the parsimonious interpretation being one of future-oriented
cognition, given what has been discovered in studies on
captive great apes.
Studies in the laboratory have attempted to address the
criteria for future-oriented behaviour more directly. The first
systematic study on cognitive foresight in great apes was con-
ducted on orangutans and bonobos [48]. The apes were
presented with a reward out of reach and a set of both useful
and useless tools, which they could select from and take into
a waiting room. To obtain the reward, they had to return to
the room where the reward was placed carrying the appropri-
ate tool, either 1 (first experiment) or 14 h (second experiment)
after seeing the reward. The results showed that the apes were
capable of saving the tools needed for a relatively distant
future. A third experiment showed that it was unnecessary
for the apes to see the reward before selecting the appropriate
tool. However, critics argued, among other things, that
the apes could potentially have experienced a desire for the
reward throughout the waiting period; thus the experiment
did not directly address the Bischof-Ko
¨hler hypothesis [4].
A more recent study addressed some of these criticisms
[49]. Once again, chimpanzees and orangutans were presented
with a tool-use task; however, in all four experimental set-ups,
the reward apparatus was out of sight at a different location
from where the tools were selected. The apparatus was not
even installed until the waiting time of seventy minutes had
passed. One experiment showed that subjects could disregard
an immediate small but highly desirable reward in favour
of the appropriate tool for gaining access to the larger future
reward, in line with Ko
¨hler’s ideas. Another experiment
showed that the functional tool was selected not merely as an
associatively learned stimulus, but rather also based on its
functionality. In yet another experiment, subjects had to
select the functional tool from a set of tools they had never
encountered before. The authors concluded that the subjects
were engaging in future-oriented planning behaviours by
outcompeting current drives and mentally pre-experiencing
an upcoming event (see [40] for a critical commentary and
[49] for a response). The results seem to argue against the
Bischof-Ko
¨hler hypothesis and preclude associative learning
as a primary mechanism.
Another study focused on whether chimpanzees could pre-
pare for future exchange with a human [50]. Subjects were
trained extensively in an immediate context to exchange an
object for a food reward; they were then tested in a delayed con-
text where they could select the exchangeable item, transport it
and keep it for later exchange. Despite the extensive training,
subjects failed at the delayed exchange-task. However, the
same subjects succeeded in the tool-use planning task. The
authors speculated that the failure might have been caused
by limitations in ability to plan for social situations, i.e. the
upcoming exchange event with a human agent. However, a
replication of the experiment showed that apes can, indeed,
defer exchange [51]. The authors of this study suggested that
the different outcomes could be the result of two different
captive populations with differing long-term experiences
of humans and, therefore, different semantic knowledge
about the world. Although more research is needed, this
could be the first indication of a role for the semantic system
in great-ape future-oriented cognition.
An observational study on the spontaneous behaviour of a
single male chimpanzee in captivity reported that he would
gather stones hours in advance, before any zoo visitors were
present, for later throwing at the visitors [52]. He placed
them in caches next to the areas where the visitors would
later stand. During the collection phase, his behaviour
appeared calm, in contrast to the very agitated state in which
he displayed and threw the projectiles. The results again
suggest that great apes can take actions well in advance
of a future goal, and again refute the Bischof-Ko
¨hler hypo-
thesis. A follow-up study on the same chimpanzee used
more controlled observations and methods [53]. The steps of
the stone-related behaviour were monitored over the course
of one zoo season. The chimpanzee was observed preparing
for deception by hiding stones under heaps of hay and inhibit-
ing his normally aggressive display behaviour when appearing
before the visitors. In this way, the visitors did not know to
back away in time before he could release a projectile. The
authors believe themselves to have observed the very first
instance of this new behaviour. The results suggest that great
apes can complexly recombine previous experiences and
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knowledge into projection of a new situation, not just react to a
‘whole’ previous memory. More experimental studies on
additional subjects are needed to gain more insights.
As noted earlier, the relationship between memory and
planning has received little empirical investigation. To address
this, a recent study investigated how encoding of information,
either intentionally or incidentally, affects subjects’ per-
formance in a tool-use task [54]. Chimpanzees, orangutans,
bonobos and human children were all tested under a highly
similar set-up. The results showed that when information rel-
evant for the tool-use task was encoded incidentally, subjects
performed worse than when they knew the information’s
relevance (intentional encoding). This suggests that the type
of memory available in a simple planning task is crucial to
performance for great apes.
On the same lines, another recent study with chimpanzees
and orangutans investigated the contribution of long-term
memory to a simple tool-use planning task [55]. The results
suggest that the chimpanzees and orangutans could remember
a tool-finding event that took place on four occasions 3 years
earlier as well as a unique tool-finding event that happened
two weeks before. The experimental paradigm worked as fol-
lows: subjects were presented with relevant cues that were
present in the original event (same experimenter, same
set-up, same context), to assess whether the cues would trigger
the memory of where to search for the tools. The results
highlight two issues. First, the apes’ memories for past events
could be triggered by distinctive relevant cues, similar to
human memory. The results thereby question the very idea of
complete contextual detachment as a requirement for future-
oriented cognition. Second, the apes could act on events that
happened a few times either years ago or two weeks ago but
only once. The results thereby provide insights into the contri-
bution of memory to future-oriented cognition. It is difficult
to argue that the apes were not relying on some episodic
elements of their memories to succeed in these tasks.
The above-cited empirical examples relate mainly to the be-
havioural criteria that have been suggested for future-oriented
cognition and to purported operations of the episodic system.
Several other studies on great apes concerning future-orien-
tated cognition are worth mentioning, focusing on another of
the abilities Ko
¨hler pondered upon: exerting self-control in
the current moment in return for future benefit. Self-control
is an inhibitory ability, crucial for future orientation. No
matter how advanced other cognitive mechanisms are—
episodic or otherwise—no action towards a future outcome
will be taken unless one can overcome conflicting psychologi-
cal states. Indeed, not long ago, non-human animals were
generally thought of as inherently impulsive; this was taken
as part of the evidence that they were ‘stuck in time’ [6]. The
picture has changed, not least, thanks to great-ape studies
revealing high levels of self-control [56–58]. This ability is
obviously one piece of a conglomerate of mechanisms under-
stood as future-oriented cognition. As suggested earlier,
the episodic system might play a role in self-control, if it pro-
vides an episodic construct of the future outcome that can
break the motivation towards immediate reward by evoking
a stronger motivation [26]. On the other hand, the inhibitory
control itself is probably not part of the episodic system.
Indeed, a study on a patient with dense episodic amnesia
found that he was able to exert self-control in the face of a smal-
ler, temporally close reward and a larger, delayed one [59]. The
context involved only hypothetical monetary rewards, where
money itself is a symbolic stand-in for ‘real’ value. So, the
set-up probably favours semantic operations more than ‘real’,
non-symbolic rewards.
Although so far only a few studies on future-oriented cog-
nition in great apes exist, those studies provide enough
evidence to conclude that the great apes can exhibit future-
oriented cognition according to the current, imprecise criteria.
We have chosen to review the empirical results only on great
apes and not other animals, because the great apes are our clo-
sest living non-human relatives (for a review including more
taxa, see e.g. [27]). By the logics of evolution, which surely
apply to cognition, closely related species sharing complex fea-
tures not found to the same extent in any close out-group do so
because of homologies. It violates parsimony to assume radi-
cally different cognitive mechanisms behind highly similar
behaviours. If the similarities are accepted as homologies,
this opens up the possibility for detailed investigations into
the differences, which could then be used for the better to
define and explain future-oriented cognition both in humans
and other species of great apes in a more grounded way.
At the moment, the debate is highly polarized, constitut-
ing one of the most heated in the field of animal cognition
today. Critics of the great-ape studies put much effort into
conveying the lack of any essential similarities between
humans and the other great apes in those aspects of future-
oriented cognition that matter—sometimes with surprisingly
little biological or epistemological sophistication. The rel-
evant behaviours are typically viewed as the result of pure
associative learning, e.g. [40,42], despite the absence of any
identified mechanisms within the associative-learning para-
digm allowing for such long-time intervals and—even more
importantly—despite well-designed controls for associative
learning [49,60], and other, clearly contradicting factors
[51]. A frequent move is to view the conclusions from these
studies as anthropomorphic or folk psychological, e.g. [61],
although those conclusions are based on existing, well-estab-
lished cognitive and biological theories, not on introspective
folk psychology with its admitted anthropomorphic bias.
We could make the list of critiques that are wide of the
mark much longer; this is just a representative selection. We
believe the confusion is mainly a result of a lack of well-
founded ideas about what future-oriented cognition really
is. Lacking solid theoretical foundations and based in part
on misunderstandings, existing behavioural criteria can, at
best, be viewed as offering tentative guidelines for investi-
gations, as they of course include intuitive grains of what
we loosely think of as future orientation.
We conclude this section with a call for a biologically
much broader approach to future-oriented cognition. For
example, findings on future-oriented abilities in crow birds,
e.g. [16,17], are particularly interesting, raising challenging
questions about how parallel evolution—perhaps along
with deep homologies—affects cognition.
5. Conclusion
We have critically examined some key theoretical issues in the
current debate over future-oriented cognition in animals in
general and great apes in particular. In doing so, we have not
provided many original thoughts; instead, we have tried to
bring attention to matters that sometimes appear to have
been overlooked and to question such seemingly strict
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dichotomies as episodic cognition or not, memory or foresight,
human or non-human.
Trying to make clear such demarcations may not be the
most fruitful way to gain deeper understanding of future-
oriented cognition. Of course, it is not uninteresting to learn
what is typically human. However, at risk of stating the
obvious: finding a cognitive singularity—e.g. the episodic
system—is likely to fail, given our species long shared genetic
history with thousands of other species. The cognition gov-
erning behaviour is complex and probably contains many
layers of adaptations working in concert, in accordance
with how evolution is understood to operate. The idea that
the episodic system is uniquely human appears particularly
ill-founded, given the ample evidence from neurobiology
and behavioural studies of other animals. One finds no
obvious unique evolutionary selective pressure for such a
system in the human lineage. That said, if one tries to find
the exact same system in other animals, it is logically all but
guaranteed that one will fail. It is curious that so many try
to define future-oriented cognition and cognitive foresight
as close as possible to the human model, such that failure
to meet even one part of the criteria means that the animal
is not foresighted; taken to the logical extreme, this results
in the empty conclusion that only humans have human
skills. This is not to say that it is not beneficial to use the
human animal as a less strict model: after all, the human
animal is the best and most studied cognitively, and it
shares an evolutionary history with many other species. Con-
temporary research into human foresight is, in contrast to the
equivalent research in other species, more balanced and
less dichotomous. For example, the intense focus on the epi-
sodic system, and its subjective experiences, in the debate
over future-oriented cognition in non-human animals has
drawn attention away from other important—probably
necessary—mechanisms for the phenomena. We illustrated
this with our brief discussion of the role of the semantic
system in future orientation. Instead of teasing apart mechan-
isms to use only one or two for explaining such a broad skills
as future-oriented cognition, one should first identify the
parts—if one even can speak about ‘cognitive parts’ as any-
thing more than theoretical constructs—and then ask how
they interact.
In this paper, we have tried, so to speak, to move the future
forward to the current moment. Any given organism ultimately
has nothing but the present, including those traces of its history
laid down in its cognition. Questions concerning future orien-
tation are really about how cognition works in the current
moment, influenced by environment and previous casual pro-
cesses, in ways that can lead to action that affects future
outcomes; and, in what diverse ways the future outcome can
be affected? Most areas of cognitive science ask more or less
these same general questions, because, as we argued earlier,
cognition is for the yet-to-come. However, by no means are
we arguing that it is meaningless to study or discuss future-
oriented cognition and related notions. At the same time, we
think that terms like ‘future-oriented cognition’ should rep-
resent a more open work field as, for example found in social
or physical cognition. No one today would ask whether ani-
mals have physical cognition, or—for social animals—
whether they have social cognition. What one finds instead in
these areas is a variety of theories, paradigms and evolutionary
accounts. We suggest that future-oriented cognition should best
be understood as referring to a research interest rather than
any singular skills or real state of theworld; it is up to research-
ers to decidefrom time to time, given empirical input, what they
find suitable to study within this sphere of interest.
One cannot help but wonder whether researchers them-
selves get fooled into thinking that it is actually possible to
think about the future, owing to our cultural constructs of
time and our remarkable skills in affecting future outcomes,
thereby coming to believe in a distinct type of cognition
that deals with the future in a way detached from the current
moment. The cognitive future is now. The time for simple,
clear-cut dichotomies in the field of future-oriented cognition
in animals has passed.
Funding statement. This work was supported by the Swedish Research
Council.
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