Why Cuttlefish Are Smarter Than We Thought A cuttlefish swims in an aquarium at the Scientific Center of Kuwait in 2016. Cuttlefish showed impressive self-control in an adaptation of the classic "marshmallow test." Yasser Al-Zayyat / AFP via Getty Images By James Doubek It was part of an experiment by Alex Schnell from the University of Cambridge and colleagues. "What surprised me the most was that the level of self-control shown by our cuttlefish was quite advanced," she tells Lulu Garcia-Navarro on Weekend Edition. The experiment was essentially a take on the classic "marshmallow" experiment from the 1960s. In that experiment, young children were presented with one marshmallow and told that if they can resist eating it, unsupervised, for several minutes, they will get two marshmallows. But if they eat it that's all they get.