Having an imaginary friend, playing house or daydreaming about the future were long considered uniquely human abilities. Now, scientists have conducted the first study indicating that apes have the ability to play pretend as well.

The findings, published Thursday in the journal Science, suggest that imagination is within the cognitive potential of an ape and can possibly be traced back to our common evolutionary ancestors.

“This is one of those things that we assume is distinct about our species,” said Christopher Krupenye, a cognitive scientist at Johns Hopkins University and an author of the study.

“This kind of finding really shows us that there’s much more richness to these animals’ minds than people give them credit for,” he said.

Researchers knew that apes were capable of certain kinds of imagination. If an ape watches someone hide food in a cup, it can imagine that the food is there despite not seeing it. Because that perception is the reality — the food is actually there — it requires the ape to sustain only one view of the world, the one that it knows to be true.

“This kind of work goes beyond it,” Dr. Krupenye said. “Because it suggests that they can, at the same time, consider multiple views of the world and really distinguish what’s real from what’s imaginary.”