Since most behaviour is actually driven by proxies of one kind or another - like the sight or smell of food being a proxy for nutrition - we might expect that competition itself would be a good default proxy for scarcity and value.
I am reminded of ape communities where the top male produces half of the offspring of the troop while at the top then is killed by guy who takes over because he's too dangerous to have around. A big stakes game. It would take a few nasty beatings to get to the top and give a few to remain there. The risk might actually provide the physiological oomph - in the form of stress hormones - that would tell him to stick around and compete. Competition, stress, value and risk-taking are regularly associated.
The fact that there are random scientists wandering around with undisclosed bowls of food is vaguely misleading to us because of we are trained to think abstractly about chance. In a more natural situation with imperfect knowledge, competition itself should be a useful indicator of value. A chimp might reasonably assume* that the hidden bowl contains more if the scientist wants to fight for it or even if there is competition in its general vicinity.
* Ok, I know chimps aren't philosophers who "reasonably assume" stuff. What I should say is ...
Comment at http://evoanth.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/ape-risk/
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