researchers believed great apes also participated in the krupenye et al .
first a person put an object in one of two boxes .
the researchers recently reported their findings in plos one .
six additional chimpanzees ( five females , one male ) and two boxes , while a great ape looked on .
however , scientists have long believed that they lack the capacity for understanding what others believe — a mark of advanced social cognition thought to separate people from great apes .
the apes were housed in social groups at the leipzig zoo , germany .
we already knew that they can understand someone else ’s goals , intentions and desires .
“ social cognition is the sum of cognitive abilities necessary to survive in a social world , ” says david buttelmann from max planck institute for evolutionary anthropology , germany .
” using a test developed for human infants , buttelmann and his colleagues assessed whether chimpanzees , bonobos and orangutans could understand whether someone else ’s beliefs were true or false .