Tactical deception in cephalopods: a new framework for understanding cognition.

Abstract

Many animals rely on deception, including signalling misinformation, to gain advantages over others. While many deceptive strategies rely on deterministic patterns or conditioning, some taxa can flexibly adapt their deceptive behaviour to the identity, perspective, or inferred goals of the observer. These context-dependent deceptive strategies could be considered 'tactical deception' if they rely on higher-level cognitive processes to execute. Here, we outline why cephalopods, such as octopus and cuttlefish, are ideal candidates to explore the link between deception and cognition. As tactical deception relies on understanding differences in one's own and another observer's perspective, we suggest tactical deception as a framework to study aspects of cognition in other animals.