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Apes show complex cognitive skills watching 'King Kong' videos

Chimpanzees gather together in their compound at the Olmense Zoo in Olmen, Belgium, April 16, 2015. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File photo

Scientists using homemade videos featuring a person in a King Kong costume have documented a remarkable cognitive skill shared by chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans: the human-like ability to recognize when someone else's beliefs are wrong.

The research demonstrated that these great apes, humankind's closest living evolutionary cousins, possess a capability thought until now to have been the exclusive domain of people, the scientists said on Thursday.

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