This is Scientific Americans 60 Second Science.

I'm Jason Goldman.

Imagine you had never tasted lemonade.

You would still probably assume that lemon juice mixed with sugar tastes better than lemon juice alone.

Because you know what lemons taste like and you know what sugar tastes like.

You can recall those past experiences and make a prediction about your response to something new.

Researchers call the ability to predict our future emotional state effective forecasting.

And some have suggested that the skill is unique to humans. But is it?

We combine different liquids and ask participants that were

ranked under humans to predict how such novel liquid combinations

taste like and whether they prefer the one on the other.

Lund University Cognitive Scientist Gabriella Alina Saatchuk.

She and her colleagues offered their cocktails to a 21-year-old male Sumatran orangutan named

Nao, who lives in Sweden's Forovick Zoo. They used four ingredients. Cherry juice, Rubar Juice, Lemon Juice, and diluted apple cider vinegar, which they combined into six unfamiliar mixtures, altogether that made for 24 possible comparisons of one drink against another.

Nunga watched the researcher mix his drinks, then he got to choose from the two set before him. And in 21 of the 24 trials now matched the

researcher's predictions that his choice would be based on his relative fondness for the separate

ingredients. For example, since he liked rhubarb juice better than lemon juice he also

preferred rhubarb cherry juice to lemon cherry juice despite having had no experience

with either. We were impressed at Nong's ability to be so consistent in his choices.

From a statistical perspective, the Orangutan data was indistinguishable from human data.

Both species seem to make consistent choices about future events, even if they had no prior

experience to guide their decision-making.

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