Researchers find Asian elephants can resist impulsive behavior
Study provides new evidence of inhibitory control in elephants, offering insights into how they make decisions and adapt to changing environments.
image:
An Asian elephant reaches for a treat during a study of inhibitory control conducted by researchers from the CUNY Graduate Center and Hunter College in Thailand.
view moreCredit: Sydney Hope
NEW YORK, September 9, 2026 — Researchers at the CUNY Graduate Center and Hunter College have found that Asian elephants can suppress impulsive behaviors and adjust their actions when circumstances change—a cognitive ability that may help explain the animals’ sophisticated problem-solving skills and social behavior.
The study, led by CUNY Graduate Center and Hunter College Psychology Professor Joshua Plotnik and postdoctoral researcher Sydney Hope, provides the first evidence that Asian elephants demonstrate this form of inhibitory control, an important component of decision-making and cognitive flexibility in humans and other animals. The research was published in PLOS ONE.
The findings could ultimately contribute to conservation strategies aimed at reducing conflict between elephants and people, particularly in areas of Asia where elephants and human communities increasingly share the same landscapes.
“We found that, when elephants were faced with a situation in which they needed to suppress an impulsive behavior, either the impulse to reach directly toward a food reward behind a transparent barrier or the impulse to continue using a previously effective technique, they were generally able to suppress the impulse,” Hope said. “This ability may be important for elephants' social interactions or for other aspects of cognition, such as problem-solving.”
Testing elephants’ ability to change course
The researchers tested 16 Asian elephants at the National Elephant Institute in Thailand. The elephants were presented with a transparent box containing fruit. Although the animals could see and smell the food through small holes in the box, they learned to resist the impulse to reach directly toward the reward. Instead, they used an opening on the side of the box to access the food.
The researchers then rotated the box, changing the location of the opening. Initially, the elephants reached toward the location where the opening had previously been. But they were able to suppress that impulse and adjust their behavior, quickly learning to use the opening in its new location.
The researchers found that older elephants took longer to adapt to the change. The result could point to age-related changes in cognitive flexibility, although the researchers caution that additional research is needed to determine whether the difference reflects cognitive decline.
The study adds to growing evidence that elephants possess sophisticated cognitive abilities. Inhibitory control—the ability to suppress an automatic or previously learned response in favor of a more appropriate action—is particularly important when animals must navigate changing or unpredictable environments.
From animal cognition to conservation
For nearly two decades, Plotnik has studied elephant intelligence, personality, and social behavior in Thailand, combining experimental research with conservation efforts. His work examines not only what elephants can do, but also how their cognitive abilities and individual behavioral differences may influence interactions with people.
Research from Plotnik and his collaborators has shown that elephants can recognize themselves in mirrors, console distressed companions, coordinate actions with partners, and solve novel problems. The team has also found that elephants living near human communities tend to be more willing to take risks and explore unfamiliar situations—behaviors that could help explain why some elephants repeatedly enter agricultural areas and come into conflict with people.
Understanding how elephants respond to obstacles, make decisions, and adapt to changing circumstances may help researchers better predict their behavior in human-dominated environments.
“The more we understand about how elephants think, make decisions about risk, and adapt to human-driven environmental change, the better we can predict ‘what they’ll do next’ and the better designed our strategies for human-elephant coexistence can be,” Plotnik said.
About the CUNY Graduate Center
The CUNY Graduate Center is a leader in public graduate education devoted to enhancing the public good through pioneering research, serious learning, and reasoned debate. The Graduate Center offers ambitious students nearly 50 doctoral and master’s programs of the highest caliber, taught by top faculty from throughout CUNY, the nation’s largest urban public university. Through its nearly 40 centers, institutes, initiatives, and the Advanced Science Research Center, the Graduate Center influences public policy and discourse and shapes innovation.
Journal
PLOS One
Method of Research
Observational study
Subject of Research
Animals
Article Title
Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) demonstrate inhibitory control in a detour task
Article Publication Date
9-Sep-2026
Clever elephants can think before they act
Experiments show Asian elephants can resist an impulsive approach in favor of the more effective route to problem solving
image:
Experiment Setup. (A) An elephant enters the “over” opening to gain access to food in a familiarization trial. (B) An elephant enters the “under” opening to gain access to food (apple) in a test trial. Photos were cropped to remove extraneous background material; the left image was mirrored. Photos by Sangpa Dittakul.
view moreCredit: Hope et al., 2026, PLOS One, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Asian elephants can resist their impulses and choose a more rational course of action, according to a study published September 9, 2026 in the open access journal PLOS One by Sydney Hope of Hunter College, New York and colleagues.
Inhibitory control – the ability to resist an impulse in favor of more effective behavior – is an important part of decision-making and cognitive flexibility in humans and other animals. This feature has been demonstrated in various species of birds and mammals, often using a detour test in which subjects must ignore an obvious but ineffective path to a treat in favor of an indirect route. In this study, Hope and colleagues document the first such demonstration with elephants.
Sixteen Asian elephants were tested at the National Elephant Institute in Thailand. When presented with a transparent box with small holes through which they could see and smell fruit inside, the elephants consistently were able to resist the temptation to try to reach directly for the food and instead used an opening on the side of the box as they had been taught earlier. When the box was later rotated, the elephants at first succumbed to the impulse to reach for the previous position of the opening before quickly correcting their behavior. This adjustment was slower in older individuals, with one possible explanation being cognitive decline with age, although the researchers note that more study will be needed to confirm this.
Overall, these trials demonstrate the ability of elephants to resist impulsive but ineffective action in favor of indirect effective behaviors, even when it requires them to adjust a previously effective approach. The authors note that this inhibitory control might be a key part of elephants’ famed problem-solving and socializing skills. Understanding how elephants respond to barriers might also help with the development of more effective mitigation strategies to avoid human-elephant conflict.
The authors add: “We found that, when elephants were faced with a situation where they needed to suppress an impulsive behavior—either the impulse to reach directly toward a food reward behind a transparent and perforated barrier, or the impulse to continue using a previously (but no longer) effective technique—they were generally able to suppress the impulse. This ability may be important for elephants' social interactions or for other aspects of cognition, such as problem-solving.”
In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS One: https://plos.io/4d4YaZZ
Citation: Hope SF, Jacobson SL, Dittakul S, Schmitt G, Pla-ard M, Yindee M, et al. (2026) Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) demonstrate inhibitory control in a detour task. PLoS One 21(9): e0356549. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0356549
Author countries: USA, Thailand.
Funding: This research was funded in whole or in part by Templeton World Charity Foundation (funder DOI 501100011730, grant TWCF-2022-30066 to J.M.P.; https://doi.org/10.54224/30066). This research was also supported by Hunter College through the Research Foundation of the City University of New York. G.S. received funding support from the Animal Behavior and Conservation Program at Hunter College. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) demonstrate inhibitory control in a detour task [VIDEO]
Familiarization Trial. An elephant (ThongChai) interacting with the familiarization (opaque) box. The box is in the “under” orientation and the reward is half of an apple. Video was taken on a Sony FDR-AX100 camcorder.
Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) demonstrate inhibitory control in a detour task [VIDEO]
Testing the Knowing/Acting Mismatch. An elephant (ThongChai) interacting with the test (transparent) box. The box is in the “under” orientation and the reward is half of an apple. Note that this is the same elephant as in Video 1, and this test trial occurred immediately after familiarization trials with the “under” orientation. Video was taken on a Sony FDR-AX100 camcorder.
Testing Inhibition of a Previously Learned Behavior. An elephant (Malini) interacting with the test box positioned in the “left” orientation. Note that this is her first interaction with the box in this orientation. This trial immediately follows four trials of the box in the “right” orientation. The reward is half of an apple. Video was taken on a Sony FDR-AX100 camcorder.
Credit
Hope et al., 2026, PLOS One, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Journal
PLOS One
Method of Research
Experimental study
Subject of Research
Animals
Article Title
Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) demonstrate inhibitory control in a detour task
Article Publication Date
9-Sep-2026
COI Statement
J.M.P. is the president of Think Elephants International, Inc., a charity dedicated to elephant conservation. The authors have no other competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.
No comments:
Post a Comment