Martínez, Mayte (University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna / Georgia State University) Mayte Martínez Brosnan, Sarah F. (Georgia State University) Sarah F. Brosnan Babb, Matthew H. (Georgia State University) Matthew H. Babb Range, Friederike (University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna) Friederike Range Nature Portfolio 2024 Human cooperation can be facilitated by the ability to create a mental representation of one's own actions, as well as the actions of a partner, known as action co-representation. Even though other species also cooperate extensively, it is still unclear whether they have similar capacities. The Joint Simon task is a two-player task developed to investigate this action co-representation. We tested brown capuchin monkeys (Sapajus [Cebus] apella), a highly cooperative species, on a computerized Joint Simon task and found that, in line with previous research, the capuchins' performance was compatible with co-representation. However, a deeper exploration of the monkeys' responses showed that they, and potentially monkeys in previous studies, did not understand the control conditions, which precludes the interpretation of the results as a social phenomenon. Indeed, further testing to investigate alternative explanations demonstrated that our results were due to low-level cues, rather than action co-representation. This suggests that the Joint Simon task, at least in its current form, cannot determine whether non-human species co-represent their partner's role in joint tasks. PDFDocument en 2024-05-10T09:13:16.251Z Animals; Cebusphysiology; Cues 1780103 b application/pdf CC BY 4.0 International