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Chimps beat humans in memory test
BBC
Thanks to Jake Lovatt for the link.
Reposted from:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7124156.stm
Chimp counting test (QuickTime 1.3 MB) | Real / WMV link
Chimp memory test (QuickTime 1.5 MB) | Real / WMV link
Chimpanzees have an extraordinary photographic memory that is far superior to ours, research suggests.
Young chimps outperformed university students in memory tests devised by Japanese scientists.
The tasks involved remembering the location of numbers on a screen, and correctly recalling the sequence.
The findings, published in Current Biology, suggest we may have under-estimated the intelligence of our closest living relatives.
Until now, it had always been assumed that chimps could not match humans in memory and other mental skills.
"There are still many people, including many biologists, who believe that humans are superior to chimpanzees in all cognitive functions," said lead researcher Tetsuro Matsuzawa of Kyoto University.
"No one can imagine that chimpanzees - young chimpanzees at the age of five - have a better performance in a memory task than humans.
"Here we show for the first time that young chimpanzees have an extraordinary working memory capability for numerical recollection - better than that of human adults tested in the same apparatus, following the same procedure."
Memory tests
Dr Matsuzawa and colleagues tested three pairs of mother and baby chimpanzees against university students in a memory task involving numbers.
The mothers and their five-year-old offspring had already been taught to "count" from one to nine.
During the experiment, each subject was presented with various numerals from one to nine on a touch screen monitor.
The numbers were then replaced with blank squares and the test subject had to remember which number appeared in which location, then touch the appropriate square.
They found that, in general, the young chimps performed better than their mothers and the adult humans.
The university students were slower than all of the three young chimpanzees in their response.
The researchers then varied the amount of time that the numbers appeared on-screen to compare the working memory of humans and chimps.
Chimps performed much better than university students in speed and accuracy when the numbers appeared only briefly on screen.
The shortest time duration, 210 milliseconds, did not leave enough time for the subjects to explore the screen by eye movement - something we do all the time when we read.
This is evidence, the researchers believe, that young chimps have a photographic memory which allows them to memorise a complex scene or pattern at a glance. This is sometimes present in human children but declines with age, they say.
"Young chimpanzees have a better memory than human adults," Dr Matsuzawa told BBC News.
"We are still underestimating the intellectual capability of chimpanzees, our evolutionary neighbours."
'Ground-breaking'
Dr Lisa Parr, who works with chimps at the Yerkes Primate Center at Emory University in Atlanta, US, described the research as "ground-breaking".
She said their importance of these primates for understanding the skills necessary for the evolution of modern humans was unparalleled.
"They are our closest living relatives and thus are in a unique position to inform us about our evolutionary heritage," said Dr Parr.
"These studies tell us that elaborate short-term memory skills may have had a much more salient function in early humans than is present in modern humans, perhaps due to our increasing reliance on language-based memory skills."
The research is published in Current Biology, a publication of Cell Press.
Reposted from:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7124156.stm
Chimp counting test (QuickTime 1.3 MB) | Real / WMV link
Chimp memory test (QuickTime 1.5 MB) | Real / WMV link
Chimpanzees have an extraordinary photographic memory that is far superior to ours, research suggests.Young chimps outperformed university students in memory tests devised by Japanese scientists.
The tasks involved remembering the location of numbers on a screen, and correctly recalling the sequence.
The findings, published in Current Biology, suggest we may have under-estimated the intelligence of our closest living relatives.
Until now, it had always been assumed that chimps could not match humans in memory and other mental skills.
"There are still many people, including many biologists, who believe that humans are superior to chimpanzees in all cognitive functions," said lead researcher Tetsuro Matsuzawa of Kyoto University.
"No one can imagine that chimpanzees - young chimpanzees at the age of five - have a better performance in a memory task than humans.
"Here we show for the first time that young chimpanzees have an extraordinary working memory capability for numerical recollection - better than that of human adults tested in the same apparatus, following the same procedure."
Memory tests
Dr Matsuzawa and colleagues tested three pairs of mother and baby chimpanzees against university students in a memory task involving numbers.
The mothers and their five-year-old offspring had already been taught to "count" from one to nine.During the experiment, each subject was presented with various numerals from one to nine on a touch screen monitor.
The numbers were then replaced with blank squares and the test subject had to remember which number appeared in which location, then touch the appropriate square.
They found that, in general, the young chimps performed better than their mothers and the adult humans.
The university students were slower than all of the three young chimpanzees in their response.
The researchers then varied the amount of time that the numbers appeared on-screen to compare the working memory of humans and chimps.
Chimps performed much better than university students in speed and accuracy when the numbers appeared only briefly on screen.
The shortest time duration, 210 milliseconds, did not leave enough time for the subjects to explore the screen by eye movement - something we do all the time when we read.
This is evidence, the researchers believe, that young chimps have a photographic memory which allows them to memorise a complex scene or pattern at a glance. This is sometimes present in human children but declines with age, they say.
"Young chimpanzees have a better memory than human adults," Dr Matsuzawa told BBC News.
"We are still underestimating the intellectual capability of chimpanzees, our evolutionary neighbours."
'Ground-breaking'
Dr Lisa Parr, who works with chimps at the Yerkes Primate Center at Emory University in Atlanta, US, described the research as "ground-breaking".
She said their importance of these primates for understanding the skills necessary for the evolution of modern humans was unparalleled."They are our closest living relatives and thus are in a unique position to inform us about our evolutionary heritage," said Dr Parr.
"These studies tell us that elaborate short-term memory skills may have had a much more salient function in early humans than is present in modern humans, perhaps due to our increasing reliance on language-based memory skills."
The research is published in Current Biology, a publication of Cell Press.
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Posted: Monday, December 3, 2007 | PermalinkComments 1 - 50 of 74 |
Reload Comments | Back to Top | Page Numbers2. Comment #93669 by admin on December 3, 2007 at 9:58 pm
The videos are just amazing. I think they should be sent to everyone who denies evolution for a little dose of humility.Josh
Other Comments by admin
3. Comment #93673 by Samsayananda on December 3, 2007 at 10:13 pm
There is hope . At least Chimps will remember history and will not repeat the same mistakes. If Chimps were to rule they may avoid the repetition of another Holocaust, this time on Muslims.Muslims are having a hard time getting jobs and are being driven to seek comfort in their religion, as that seems to be the only source of security for them.It is indeed very hard for a person to be free of a terrible conditioning like religion. Islam, like other forms religious programmes enslaves and drives the mind to live in a hell hole.
Though sites like this are meant to educate people , they , unwittingly,sometimes, provide fodder for right-wing people. Islam desperately needs a good PR team ! It is sad we have not found a way other than confrontation.
Other Comments by Samsayananda
4. Comment #93674 by ChrisMcL on December 3, 2007 at 10:21 pm
82abhilash:If you'd paid attention to more movies (duh!) you would know that robots take over the world first, then monkeys, but humanity ultimately learns to make peace with the evil simians and androids. This experiment is all the more frightening because we see proof that monkeys are learning to use computers. If monkeys and robots ever team up, we are all surely doomed!
I would like to hear Sam Harris address this issue- maybe in "Letter to a Planet of the Apes" or "The End of Rust".
Other Comments by ChrisMcL
5. Comment #93675 by soul_biscuit on December 3, 2007 at 10:22 pm
The research found that young chimpanzees outperformed human adults. I wonder what would happen if they put young chimpanzees against human children? Perhaps human children have a capacity for photographic memory that declines with age, just as chimpanzees do.Pretty stunning research regardless.
Other Comments by soul_biscuit
6. Comment #93677 by MuNky82 on December 3, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Perhaps human children have a capacity for photographic memory that declines with age, just as chimpanzees do.
I watched this story on BBC World before I left the house an hour ago, where at the end they actually say that.
I would like to hear Sam Harris address this issue- maybe in "Letter to a Planet of the Apes" or "The End of Rust".
LOL
Other Comments by MuNky82
7. Comment #93678 by JanChan on December 3, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Muslims are having a hard time getting jobs and are being driven to seek comfort in their religion, as that seems to be the only source of security for them.It is indeed very hard for a person to be free of a terrible conditioning like religion. Islam, like other forms religious programmes enslaves and drives the mind to live in a hell hole.
I have this feeling that all they have to do to stop being discriminated against is to stop wearing those burkas. To the West the burka is a symbol of how different Muslims are from them, from human rights, to religious demonstration in public. Take that freaking thing off, and we probably wouldn't even notice them.
Other Comments by JanChan
8. Comment #93684 by Spinoza on December 3, 2007 at 10:52 pm
That is an incredibly idiotic statement JanChan.The Burqa isn't even a "Muslim" garment... it is an interpretation of the command to dress modestly in the Quran. The Quran itself doesn't mention the Burqa at all... it's more a product of patriarchal control of women than anything.
And second of all, MANY Muslim women in the west DON'T wear burqas (neither do most of them in Turkey or Lebanon or other non-Islamic states with majority Muslim populations...).
Thirdly, many Jewish and Christian (orthodox) women often wear wigs or head-scarves in public JUST AS many Muslim women do... this is a more lax form of the call for modest dress... and it has a long tradition in ALL the Abrahamic religions.
Fourthly, it's none of your damn business what they wear. Just as women in the West can choose to wear halter-tops and mini-skirts without being harassed, so too can Muslim women choose to dress modestly.
Atheism has nothing whatsoever to do with what religious people WEAR.
For fuck's sake.
Other Comments by Spinoza
9. Comment #93685 by BobbyBigWheel on December 3, 2007 at 10:52 pm
LOL The Chimp isn't even trying! Other Comments by BobbyBigWheel
10. Comment #93691 by drcancerman on December 3, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Spinoza;But the Jewish and christians use in a different way, not in a religious way like muslims do; According to a muslim friend of mine(which later on told me she couldnt be at my side because I'm an unrelated man) there is different levels of believes, the strong ones and then the not so strong and the weak, she said that the weakest is the ones who doesnt wear a hijab or burqa.
But another thing is, I surely never saw a jewish or christian woman with a burqa! Head to toe covering...NEVER!
You should learn a bit moreabout what muslims believe. Specially talking with one of them to learn their costumes...
Other Comments by drcancerman
11. Comment #93694 by drcancerman on December 3, 2007 at 11:36 pm
ps: One kick in the creationists nuts...again! By now, I think they dont have much of "nuts" anymore, since in this couple of years,thats pretty much what they are getting... a kick in the nuts
Other Comments by drcancerman
12. Comment #93696 by kintaro_crab on December 3, 2007 at 11:42 pm
Don't name that ape Caesar..... You MANIACS, YOU BLEW IT UP!! GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL..sry couldn't resist
Other Comments by kintaro_crab
13. Comment #93711 by Vaal on December 4, 2007 at 1:33 am
The chimps with the lowest scores are not too disheartened, as they will be guaranteed a career in the church! Other Comments by Vaal
14. Comment #93712 by gcdavis on December 4, 2007 at 1:33 am
Spoking as a chumpinzee miself I kant sea whot all the fus is aboyt, we hive alwaze bean god at numburs, not so goud at wordzs thow! Other Comments by gcdavis
15. Comment #93713 by Asta Kask on December 4, 2007 at 1:37 am
So? There are birds who can remember the exact location of 100+ caches where they store nuts. I can't find the book I was reading and put down "temporarily" yesterday.Other Comments by Asta Kask
16. Comment #93727 by LBraschi on December 4, 2007 at 3:29 am
I saw Matsuzawa at the First Iberian Conference of Ethology in Portugal last November, where he presented this research.The whole field of cognitive ethology is very interesting, from an evolutionary perspective. It's time to acknowledge that what we call 'intelligence' is very different from species to species. Every species has the mental adaptations required for its ecological niche.
Special creation my **s
@Asta Kask: maybe this article interests you:
Clayton NS, Dickinson A. (1999) Scrub jays (Aphelocoma coerulescens) remember the relative time of caching as well as the location and content of their caches. Journal of Comparative Psychology 113(4):403-16
Other Comments by LBraschi
17. Comment #93728 by GBG on December 4, 2007 at 3:30 am
i sent that video to a creationist guy i know, he said;"pft, So what? I can count much higher than ten".
I congratulated him and said no more.
Other Comments by GBG
18. Comment #93730 by SteveN on December 4, 2007 at 3:45 am
Soul_Biscuit wrote in Post #5The research found that young chimpanzees outperformed human adults. I wonder what would happen if they put young chimpanzees against human children? Perhaps human children have a capacity for photographic memory that declines with age, just as chimpanzees do.I think there may be some truth in that. I remember that when my children were very young (maybe 5 or 6 years) they would totally, humiliatingly destroy me at the game 'Memory' (the one where you have to turn over pairs of matching cards). I thought then that it must be something about to do with having a young brain. When, in order to test this hypothesis, I rechallenged them as adults to a game we were equally matched. Of course, it's also possible that my memory had improved in the intervening years, but I doubt it.
Other Comments by SteveN
19. Comment #93736 by nepeta on December 4, 2007 at 4:03 am
I read some stupid comments in other blogs about this article saying things like our predecessors had a better memory, but chimps aren't our predecessors, we have common predecessors with them. I also don't agree that chimps can help us necessarily to understand our predecessors because how can we know if our common predecessors were more like chimps or more like men?The idea that men are the top of evolution of the primates is completely wrong, we are the top of the evolution of our line, chimps are the top of their line, cats, dogs, flies and mice are the top of their respective lines.
Men are arrogant and believe that they're the best, but not only monkeys but other species can also outperform humans in other tasks.
I also think it would be interesting to repeat this experiment using human children to see if human also lose the memory wit the age.
If I take myself it wouldn't be necessary to do this experiment because my memory is degradating more and more with my age
Other Comments by nepeta
20. Comment #93737 by Harko on December 4, 2007 at 4:09 am
Slightly off topic.....(btw the videos *are* amazing!!)
Did anyone have trouble playing the MOV files?
Couldn't get Quicktime player to play them. Not really an expert on these things but they seem to be using the MOV file as a container for WMV3-encoded data. This seems a bit non-standard.
The versions from the BBC website were fine :-)
Other Comments by Harko
21. Comment #93744 by notsobad on December 4, 2007 at 5:08 am
Planet of the Apes was a documentary. Other Comments by notsobad
22. Comment #93746 by phasmagigas on December 4, 2007 at 5:29 am
I read some stupid comments in other blogs about this article saying things like our predecessors had a better memory, but chimps aren't our predecessors, we have common predecessors with them. I also don't agree that chimps can help us necessarily to understand our predecessors because how can we know if our common predecessors were more like chimps or more like men?
true, the statements work on the assumption that chimps abilities are closer to the ancestral state and of course it could be that WE are closer to the ancestral state. As our mind has evolved dramatically in many areas we assume it has in all areas, thats is not necessarily true and our bias.
Other Comments by phasmagigas
23. Comment #93751 by Dr Benway on December 4, 2007 at 5:48 am
Humans have all the wiring to do this. But higher levels suppress and filter this low level input. Some people with head injury or autism lack that suppression and can demonstrate a photographic memory.Language screws up memory pretty badly. Converting a memory into words is like representing a wav sound file as a midi.
We dont' remember what happened; we remember what the event means to us.
For Americans: without looking, remember who's face is on the dime?
Other Comments by Dr Benway
24. Comment #93753 by Alter_GX on December 4, 2007 at 5:58 am
Neither could I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUR-OdR3egU
Other Comments by Alter_GX
25. Comment #93754 by Buddha on December 4, 2007 at 5:58 am
Chimps arn't that smart. I saw a TV prog recently with an interview of a psychologist who managed to conclusively prove that Chimps are incapable of following the plot to Shakespeare's Othello. Something to do with the fact that they are limited in their ability to mentally project themselves to empathise or imagine other peoples motives to any great degree.
Other Comments by Buddha
26. Comment #93758 by Ty_Webb on December 4, 2007 at 6:23 am
I remember when I was at school, we used to get given lists of French words to learn. 75 words at a time. It took me five minutes to do it in the morning over breakfast. Bugged my friends something chronic. I'm sure that I couldn't do that now. I just figured that was most likely alcohol related. Maybe not though.Other Comments by Ty_Webb
27. Comment #93760 by JanChan on December 4, 2007 at 6:33 am
The Burqa isn't even a "Muslim" garment... it is an interpretation of the command to dress modestly in the Quran. The Quran itself doesn't mention the Burqa at all... it's more a product of patriarchal control of women than anything.
That's not what I'm saying, I said that the burka, and all those whole body garments serve as a symbol to the West as what differentiates Muslims from them. And when we ask them to dress in uniforms like when going to school, they refuse to take them off. Not like Jewish or Christian traditional attire. It also brings along the idea of what are they hiding beneath those clothes that they have to cover themselves fully.
Other Comments by JanChan
28. Comment #93768 by GSP on December 4, 2007 at 7:25 am
I wonder if chimps asked us to let them out of captivity and stop experimenting and torturing them in the name of "Science," if we'd listen.Other Comments by GSP
29. Comment #93769 by a tree with roots on December 4, 2007 at 7:28 am
Maybe this has something to do with how adult humans have pretty much learned to use crutches for memory instead of actually remembering things -pads of paper with notes written on them, for example. I remember reading that ancient speakers like Cicero would have no choice but to memorize each one of their entire speeches since they didn't have a convenient way of bringing notes along with them. I wouldn't be surprised if young human children displayed memory as well as these chimps (or at least better than adult humans), since they presumably haven't yet learned to rely on these external tools to remember things.
Or maybe I'm just a little foggy on the details...
Other Comments by a tree with roots
30. Comment #93770 by sheepscarer on December 4, 2007 at 7:29 am
We chimps are more advanced than you think but there are problems with certain sections determined to undermine our rationality with superstition and belief in a great ape in the sky. Extreme forms of this are calling for the death of the pope for taking the primate name in vain and 40 lashes for that schoolteacher in Sudan for blaspheming with her surname...Monkey see monkey do
Other Comments by sheepscarer
31. Comment #93802 by Alan B on December 4, 2007 at 8:28 am
After 6000 years it has come to this! Oh Woe! Woe!Other Comments by Alan B
32. Comment #93822 by pete on December 4, 2007 at 9:08 am
All there is to know about evolution has already been covered in Garth Marenghi's Darkplace.Google Video
Other Comments by pete
33. Comment #93823 by elise97 on December 4, 2007 at 9:13 am
there was a science program on uk tv a few years ago that explained that children had better memory than adults and could win simple memory games because adults have brains geared to do relatively more complex multi tasking; things like working, raising offspring etc and so the memory capability has to diminish to copeOther Comments by elise97
34. Comment #93857 by ShellShock on December 4, 2007 at 10:30 am
It is a pity the researchers used numbers in the tests, as some may see this as evidence that the chimps were counting, whereas in fact they are remembering a sequence. No doubt they would perform just as well recalling a sequence of abstract, meaningless symbols. But counting it is not.Other Comments by ShellShock
35. Comment #93875 by liberalartist on December 4, 2007 at 11:17 am
"We are still underestimating the intellectual capability of chimpanzees, our evolutionary neighbours."Or we are overestimating our own! :)
I work with college students everyday so this study comes as no surprise! One has to wonder if certain substances played a roll in their low performance rate...
Other Comments by liberalartist
36. Comment #93886 by Matt7895 on December 4, 2007 at 11:51 am
That chimp is awesome. I'd love to go for a beer with him. Other Comments by Matt7895
37. Comment #93890 by walk on December 4, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Samsayananda (3) Islam desperately needs a good PR teamI agree, although a good way to begin would be for moderate Muslims to start publicly denouncing 9/11, the suicide bombing of innocent people, and the Islamic extremists in general.
Other Comments by walk
38. Comment #93907 by Matt7895 on December 4, 2007 at 12:42 pm
The Muslim Council of Britain does that... as well as the Muslim MPs and peers we have in Parliament. I guess the moderate Muslims in the States are sitting on their hands instead. Other Comments by Matt7895
39. Comment #93918 by walk on December 4, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Thanks for the info, Matt. Yes, here in the US the silence has been deafening. Other Comments by walk
40. Comment #93962 by Matt7895 on December 4, 2007 at 1:49 pm
That's a shame, especially as your country has suffered the most in the western world as a result of the extreme side of their religion. I'd also like to see them apologise for the role their religion plays in predominantly Islamic countries where people suffer everyday as a result of religious bigotry. Other Comments by Matt7895
41. Comment #93966 by Bonzai on December 4, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Don't know how Islam gets involved here. Are you referring to a passage in the Hadiths where a pack of monkeys were stoning an adulterous she-monkey? People who actually believe in that crap are less evolved than chimps.Other Comments by Bonzai
42. Comment #93976 by Goldy on December 4, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Given some of the PhD students I work with, this does not surprise me...Other Comments by Goldy
43. Comment #93979 by ADH on December 4, 2007 at 2:17 pm
"Young chimps outperformed university students in memory tests devised by Japanese scientists.The tasks involved remembering the location of numbers on a screen, and correctly recalling the sequence.
The findings, published in Current Biology, suggest we may have under-estimated the intelligence of our closest living relatives."
I don't see what all the fuss is about. Bats can see in the dark, and we can't. Dolphins can echoloct, and we can't, dogs can ind their way home over miles of uncharted territory, and we can't. So what's the big deal?
Other Comments by ADH
44. Comment #93982 by Bonzai on December 4, 2007 at 2:21 pm
ADH,I guess the big deal is this is supposedly a cognitive task.
As others mentioned before. Very young children often beat adults in games that require quick memorization and recall of patterns.
Other Comments by Bonzai
45. Comment #93985 by briancoughlanworldcitizen on December 4, 2007 at 2:24 pm
43. Comment #93979 by ADH on December 4, 2007 at 2:17 pmI don't see what all the fuss is about. Bats can see in the dark, and we can't. Dolphins can echoloct, and we can't, dogs can ind their way home over miles of uncharted territory, and we can't. So what's the big deal?
This begins to stray into the realm of cognition. We've known since the dawn of time that many animals are stronger, faster, have keener eyes and a better sense of smell than humans.
Until very recently it has been assumed that conciousness, altruism and feats of memory have been the realm of humans alone. Basically it further blurs the lines between humans and animals, in principle there is nothing unique about us, everything that makes us human is present to a lesser, and in this case greater degree, in other animals. Food for thought.
Other Comments by briancoughlanworldcitizen
46. Comment #93987 by ADH on December 4, 2007 at 2:27 pm
So can computers perform cognitive tasks, and they are getting better and better to the point were they will conceivably soon be able to programme indescribably more complex software without any human intervention. That does not make computers human, and neiher will they ever be. There is more to the human mind than cognition. It is not cognition that distinguishes us from animals or computers. It is (among other things) free choice, including moral choice.Other Comments by ADH
47. Comment #93991 by Goldy on December 4, 2007 at 2:29 pm
There is more to the human mind than cognition. It is not cognition that distinguishes us from animals or computers. It is (among other things) free choice, including moral choice.
Are you 100% sure about that... ;-)
Other Comments by Goldy
48. Comment #94000 by ADH on December 4, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Cognition, by the way, is not (as I see it) the same as reasoning.Other Comments by ADH
49. Comment #94003 by birthmachinebaby on December 4, 2007 at 3:10 pm
That does not make computers human, and neiher will they ever be
Ever? How can you be so sure about that? Ever is a very long time. Can you absolutely exclude that in say 1000 years from now a computer could become self conscious?
Other Comments by birthmachinebaby
50. Comment #94004 by M31 on December 4, 2007 at 3:11 pm
This is very interesting. But, one thing to keep in mind is that the chimps doing the tests had been trained from a very young age to do this test, and the one they really focus on is the best chimp out of a pool of chimps that were trained in this way. To really do a fair comparison I think they'd need to have the chimps go up against humans that have been practicing this test from a very young age. In any case I guess it's not really that surprising that chimps may have quicker visual reflexes than humans. Other Comments by M31
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1. Comment #93668 by 82abhilash on December 3, 2007 at 9:48 pm
That is it. Chimps will take over the world while religious bigots drive human kind to extinction.Other Comments by 82abhilash