Put a few humans up against a chimp in a memory game, and the humans are sure to win every time. Right?
Not so apparently.
Japanese researchers pitted humans against chimps in two short-term memory exercises and, overall, the chimps were the champions. One memory test included chimps that had been taught the numbers 1 to 9. They faced 12 human volunteers in a computerized memory game. Results showed that the chimps performed better when asked to do the tasks.
The chimp that did the best, Ayumu, was included in a second test against nine college students. In this test, five numbers flashed on a screen before being replaced by white squares. The subjects were asked to touch the white squares in the correct sequence. The lesser the amount of time the numbers were shown, the worse the college students did in comparison to Ayumu.
Click here to read more about this research comparing chimps and humans.
the faster they did it the worse the did? 😕
no, the faster the numbers were shown, the less that the students comprehended the numbers.
Woah.
Well, ultimately, the humans are much smarter. The humans had to spend hours and/or days to teach the chimps which numbers to press and when. Plus the humans designed the computers.