Chimpanzees are smarter than students, research at a Japanese University has discovered.
The findings from Kyoto University suggest that actually, the animals have a remarkably better photographic memory than humans.
Lead researcher Tetsuro Matsuzawa said: “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.”
Before the findings, it was believed that chimpanzees could not match humans in memory and other mental skills.
Dr Matsuzawa added: “There are still many people, including many biologists, who believe that humans are superior to chimpanzees in all cognitive functions.
“We are still underestimating the intellectual capability of chimpanzees, our evolutionary neighbours.”
Researchers unanimously believe that humans and chimps have diverged from a common ape-like ancestor in the past six million years or so of evolution.
In this study, Dr Matsuzawa and his colleagues tested three pairs of mother and baby chimpanzees against university students in a memory task involving numbers.
The students were slower than all three of the young chimpanzees in their response.
Chimps performed better in speed and accuracy when numbers appeared briefly on the screen.
Dr Lisa Parr, who works with chimps at the Yerkes Primate Center at Emory University in Atlanta, USA, described the research as ‘groundbreaking’.
He said: “These studies tell us that elaborate short-term memory skills may have had a more salient function in early humans than is present in modern humans, perhaps due to increasing reliance on language-based memory skills.”
1. Rachel
These findings support my thoughts that chimpanzees are smarter than the lecturer I had this morning, who was trying to convince me that it’s more of an advantage to be a bipedal human who can stand tall in an area of open ground and easily spot predators, than to be a cheetah. I for one would rather be the 4-legged cheetah about to eat the ‘all-seeing’ human, than the other way around!!!
2. Mark
Unless that bipedal human has a pointy stick, some dogs and some friends who are eying up that cat for lunch.
3. Rachel
Ah yes, I knew there must be a flaw in there somewhere… I’ll have to rethink my preferences for reincarnation now…
4. chris ( no longer gertrude)
Washoe RIP- you proved animals have souls- we shall never forget you and how you like shoes adn taught your young chimpanzee babaies how to say “fridge”. A great spirit has indeed left the world…..in memoriam Washoe.
5. chris ( no longer gertrude)
Che, Connolly, Washoe! Viva!