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re you smarter than a chimpanzee? No, that’s not a new TV show on the Fox Network. Scientists from Kyoto University in Japan recently compared the short-term memories of chimps to those of humans. Short-term memory is the ability to remember something shortly after hearing or seeing it. Chimps came out champs nearly every time.
Here’s how it worked. For the first part of the study, the scientists compared the memories of younger chimps and older chimps. In the test, three pairs of mothers and young (5-year-old) chimps were shown the numbers 1 through 9 on a computer screen. White squares quickly replaced the numbers on the screen. The chimps then had to remember the numbers and touch the white boxes that had replaced them in numerical order. Overall, the young chimps did much better than their mothers did, even when the white squares replaced the numbers on the screen faster and faster.
Next came the real test. The scientists brought in new test subjects—college students. When the students took the memory test, they performed well, but some of the young chimps performed better. One chimp did particularly well. His name is Ayumu, and he managed to score better than all nine of the college students. Ayumu came out on top, even when the numbers appeared on the screen for only two-tenths of a second. The chimp scored at 80 percent, while the college students’ scores plummeted to an average of 40 percent.
Chimps Use Tools
It’s no secret that chimpanzees possess talents that few others in the animal kingdom have. In 1960, scientist Jane Goodall went to the jungles of Tanzania, a country in Africa, to study chimps. At first, the chimps ran away whenever she was near. Eventually, the chimps learned to trust her.
One day, Goodall discovered an adult male chimp making a meal out of termites. He did this by using a stick as a tool. He dug the stick into the ground, let termites crawl onto it, and then licked the stick dry. Mmm … dinner! At the time, scientists thought only humans used tools. Goodall named the chimp Graybeard. Today, chimps are in danger of dying out. Goodall works to save them and their habitat.
At first, this may seem like a terrible discovery. You might be thinking, Baby chimps have better memory abilities than adult humans do? What does that say about humans as aspecies? Scientists don’t know for sure. Tetsuro Matsuzawa, the Kyoto University scientist who led the research, suggested that human brains may need space for higher-level tasks. “The capacity of the brain is limited. Perhaps humans gave up older skills in order to acquire new skills, such as languages,” he told reporters. He said he believes the research gives people something to think about: “A lot of people believe … that humans are the most intelligent [creatures] on this planet. I think this research has shown very clearly that they have been proven wrong.”
How is your short-term-memory? To take a memory test similar to the one that was given to the chimpanzees, click here.
Is short-term memory important? Write five instances in which short-term memory might be useful in everyday life.
Are you a Chimp or a Chump? See how you measure up to this jigsaw puzzle!
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