Wolfgang Köhler studied chimpanzee insight learning on Tenerife, one of Spain’s Canary Islands.
In 1913, Köhler became director of the Prussian Academy of Sciences’ anthropoid research station on Tenerife. He worked there for several years, observing chimpanzees confronted with problems such as retrieving bananas placed beyond reach. His research became the basis of The Mentality of Apes, first published in German in 1917.
In one celebrated type of task, chimpanzees stacked boxes to reach suspended food or joined sticks to extend their reach. Köhler argued that these solutions could involve insight: the animal appeared to reorganize the problem and then act purposefully, rather than improving only through gradual trial and error.
His interpretation challenged Edward Thorndike’s strongly associationist account of animal learning and helped shape Gestalt psychology. The Tenerife station was affected by World War I and closed in 1920. The island is sometimes confused with mainland locations or other Mediterranean islands, but Köhler’s primate research site was Tenerife.