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Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Octopuses can learn from experience, remember useful information, and adjust their behavior when a task changes. Experiments show this in very different ways: common octopuses learned to open plugged jars to reach crabs, while another study found seven octopuses adapting to changing versions of an L-shaped puzzle. Those results establish behavioral learning and flexibility, but they do not by themselves prove human-like reasoning, conscious planning, or a specific mental process.
The strongest conclusions depend on the species, the task, the cues available, and whether the animal merely improves with repetition or transfers what it learned to a new problem. Keeping those distinctions clear is the best way to answer “How do octopuses solve problems?” without turning impressive behavior into claims the experiments did not test.
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What the experiments establish
In controlled studies, an octopus’s performance can change as a consequence of what happened on earlier attempts. It may stop repeating an ineffective action, improve the timing of a successful action, or continue using information after a delay. In some tasks, it also changes its behavior when the physical arrangement or available visual information changes.
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Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstallThat pattern is consistent with learning: experience alters later behavior in a way that improves access to a goal. It is not the same as identifying the animal’s private thoughts. The same outward improvement can arise from stimulus–response associations, trial and error, changes in attention, motor learning, or a more elaborate representation of the problem. The experiments below show what happened and where the evidence stops.
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Jar opening: learning a solution through experience
The 1990 common-octopus experiment
Fiorito, von Planta and Scotto tested Octopus vulgaris with transparent glass jars sealed by plastic plugs. A live crab was inside each jar. The octopus had to manipulate the plug, open the container and retrieve the crab. The study is described in the PubMed abstract for the 1990 paper.
Across successive trials, unsuccessful attacks declined and performance measures improved. In practical terms, the animals became less likely to persist with actions that did not open the jar and became better at completing the food-access task. The result is direct evidence that experience affected later attempts.
What the jar result does—and does not—tell us
The authors explicitly left the mechanism open. They said the learning could reflect a stimulus–response association or trial and error. The design did not distinguish those explanations, so it cannot establish that an octopus suddenly understood the jar’s mechanics, mentally rehearsed a plan, or reasoned about cause and effect in a human-like way.
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The defensible conclusion is narrower and useful: a common octopus can learn how to obtain food from a novel container through repeated interaction. A falling error rate is evidence of learning, not a diagnostic test for a particular kind of intelligence.
Changing puzzle: behavioral flexibility under new conditions
How the L-shaped task worked
Seidel and colleagues examined puzzle solving in a 2016 study, “Pull or Push? Octopuses Solve a Puzzle Problem”. The apparatus used an L-shaped container and a separator with a hole. An octopus had to open or manipulate the container and then get it through the opening to reach the goal. Later levels altered the orientation of the setup or restricted visual access, changing which cues and movements were available.
All seven subjects solved the two basic tasks. The animals therefore did more than complete one fixed arrangement: they also encountered versions in which the physical relationship between the container, opening and animal changed. The study’s authors interpreted successful adaptation as behavioral flexibility.
Large differences between individuals
Performance was not uniform. One octopus passed a particular level in three experiment days, whereas another took 24 days. More importantly, relative performance did not remain consistent across levels: an animal that was faster on one version was not necessarily faster on another. This cautions against labeling an individual octopus a permanently “fast” or “slow” learner from a single task.
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The observations support flexible problem solving at the behavioral level. They do not identify the strategy each animal used. Possible explanations discussed by the researchers include sensitivity to visual or tactile cues, changes in motor actions, trial-and-error learning and some form of internal representation. The experiment could not select one explanation conclusively.
Jar and puzzle studies answer different questions
| Feature | 1990 jar task | 2016 changing puzzle |
|---|---|---|
| Species | Octopus vulgaris (common octopus) | Seven octopuses; the experiment reports the subjects and task performance in the primary paper |
| Goal | Open a transparent jar containing a live crab | Manipulate an L-shaped container and move it through a separator opening |
| Experience tested | Improvement across repeated trials | Success across basic and altered task levels |
| Observed change | Fewer unsuccessful attacks and improved performance measures | All subjects solved the basic tasks; performance varied by person and level |
| What the authors could infer | Learning through experience | Behavioral flexibility in a changing physical problem |
| Mechanism proven? | No; stimulus–response association and trial and error remained possible | No; cues, motor learning, trial and error and mental representation were not cleanly separated |
What kinds of learning have been documented?
A comparative review by Schnell and colleagues, “How intelligent is a cephalopod? Lessons from comparative cognition” (2020), organizes evidence across cephalopods into several learning categories. These findings should not be treated as interchangeable: a result in a cuttlefish or another octopus species is not automatically a result for every octopus.
Associative conditioning
Associative learning occurs when an animal’s behavior changes because a cue predicts a consequence, such as food or an aversive event. The jar study fits this broad framework, because repeated consequences changed the probability of particular attacks and manipulations. Associative learning can be highly effective without requiring a complex, human-like concept of the object.
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Discrimination learning
In discrimination tasks, an animal learns that one stimulus or choice is rewarded while another is not. A color, shape, texture or location can serve as the relevant cue. Improvement shows that the animal can use a distinction that matters for the task; it does not by itself show that the animal understands the cue in an abstract human sense.
Reversal learning
Reversal learning tests whether an animal can change when the old rule stops working—for example, when the previously rewarded choice is no longer rewarded. This is more demanding than learning one stable association because the subject must reduce reliance on an established response and acquire a new one. The review describes reversal learning across cephalopod research, while emphasizing that the underlying processes can still include associative mechanisms.
Spatial learning
Spatial tasks ask an animal to use locations or relationships between environmental cues. They can reveal memory for where a resource or shelter is, rather than only a response to a single object. The exact sensory information available matters: a result based on visual landmarks is not identical to one based on a chemical trail or tactile contact.
Memory: how long can useful information last?
The two-spot-octopus shelter study
The 2020 review reports a study of two-spot octopuses learning to locate shelter with spatial cues in an unfamiliar arena. Most animals demonstrated learning in one day and retained the information over seven days. This is evidence for memory that persists beyond the immediate training session.
The qualification is important. “One day” and “seven days” describe the species, procedure and retention interval in that cited study; they are not a universal memory limit for octopuses. Retention also does not reveal whether the memory is a vivid map, a set of associations, a motor routine, or another representation. It shows that previously useful information continued to influence behavior after time had passed.
Short-term and long-term evidence
The comparative review discusses both short- and long-term memory in cephalopods, along with the learning categories above. A fair interpretation asks three questions: what was learned, how long was it retained, and what changed when the test conditions changed? A single successful trial answers none of these on its own.
Do octopuses learn by watching each other?
A reported color-discrimination result
One 1992 study reported that common octopuses learned a color-discrimination task after watching a demonstrator. If reliable, that would suggest that information obtained by observing another animal can influence later choices.
Why the claim remains disputed
The later comparative review notes that the finding has not been replicated and that the original study lacked controls capable of ruling out simpler alternatives. For example, an observer might respond to changes in the apparatus, odors, attention or other cues associated with the demonstration rather than copy a demonstrator’s action or acquire a social rule.
The accurate summary is therefore: one study reported an observational-learning effect, but observational learning in octopuses is not an established general ability. It should not be presented as proof that octopuses routinely imitate one another.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsHow smart are octopuses? A careful way to interpret the evidence
“Smart” compresses several different capacities into one word. The studies support learning from consequences, retention of information and behavioral adjustment when conditions change. Those are meaningful abilities, especially in animals that often forage alone and encounter changing physical environments.
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They do not settle whether an octopus plans several steps ahead, experiences a human-like concept of a tool, or consciously understands a mechanism. Good performance can result from a chain of associations refined by feedback. The review specifically cautions that many documented learning forms can be explained by associative processes and do not, by themselves, establish complex cognition.
This is not a dismissal of the behavior. Associative learning can support remarkably flexible action, and distinguishing mechanisms is scientifically difficult. The right claim is proportional: octopuses show impressive, measurable behavioral flexibility, while the internal process remains partly unresolved.
How to compare an octopus-learning claim
When a new experiment or video is described as proof that an octopus “understands” a puzzle, check the evidence along these axes:
- Species: Is the subject a common octopus, a two-spot octopus, another octopus species, a cuttlefish or a different cephalopod?
- Task and cues: What could the animal see, touch, smell or taste, and which cue actually predicted the reward?
- Stable or changing setup: Did the same arrangement repeat, or did orientation, access or the rule change?
- Learning measure: Did performance improve over trials, survive a delay, transfer to a new arrangement, or reverse when the reward changed?
- Alternative mechanisms: Could stimulus–response association, motor practice or trial and error explain the result without invoking a more complex mental model?
- Individual variation: Were several animals tested, and did their performance remain consistent across levels?
This framework separates an observed behavioral result from a proposed explanation. It also prevents findings from one species or task from being generalized to all octopuses.
What remains unknown
The jar and puzzle experiments leave several questions open. Researchers still need designs that more sharply separate visual cues from tactile feedback, control for motor practice, test whether a learned solution transfers to genuinely novel arrangements, and measure retention over multiple intervals. Replication is especially important for claims about social or observational learning.
Future evidence could strengthen a claim about a particular mechanism, but it would still need to identify the conditions under which that mechanism operates. “Octopuses learn” is well supported. “Octopuses solve every problem through insight,” “remember for a fixed number of days,” or “learn by imitation as a routine social skill” are broader claims than these studies justify.
The evidence-based answer
Octopuses solve problems by changing their behavior as experience provides feedback. Common octopuses learned to open crab-filled jars; seven animals adapted to changing L-shaped puzzle configurations; and two-spot octopuses in a cited study learned spatial shelter cues in one day and retained them for seven days. These findings demonstrate learning, memory and behavioral flexibility. They do not, by themselves, reveal whether the animals use human-like reasoning, nor do they prove that observation-based learning is a routine octopus ability.
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