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Chimps Outscore College Students on Memory Test

Journal written by arbitraryaardvark (845916) and posted by ScuttleMonkey on Mon Dec 03, 2007 01:11 PM
from the well-when-the-rewards-are-bananas dept.
It's funny. Laugh. User Journal Science
AP's Malcolm Ritter reports that young chimpanzees were better at remembering a series of numbers flashed on a screen, than the Japanese college students used as a control group. Scientists plan to repeat the experiment using 5th graders against the great apes.
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Journal: Nimble chimps outscore college students on memory test by arbitraryaardvark (845916)
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  • BAC! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 03 2007, @01:11PM (#21562073)
    I demand blood alcohol content tests!

    At least make the chimps do banana flavored shots the night before ...

    • At least make the chimps do banana flavored shots the night before ...
      The scary part is -- that they did.

      • Re:BAC! (Score:5, Funny)

        by Squiffy (242681) on Monday December 03 2007, @02:28PM (#21563047) Homepage
        Considering some of the undergrads I've known, I'm surprised they were able to get them all to sit still long enough to administer the test. It must have been like herding cats.

        • You declare the research crap without even reading TFA? How scientific! If you had, you'd see that the chimps trained to recognize the numbers (not in recall, just recognizing) for an unspecified period of time; and that the humans practiced the test for six months...

          What's going on here? Even with six months of training, three students failed to catch up to the three young chimps, Matsuzawa said in an e-mail.

  • Obligatory... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Harmonious Botch (921977) * on Monday December 03 2007, @01:13PM (#21562089) Homepage Journal
    I, for one, welcome our new... umm... er, ah what were they again?

  • Misleading... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pwnies (1034518) * <jjcm.linux+slashdot@gmail.com> on Monday December 03 2007, @01:13PM (#21562095) Homepage Journal
    FTA:

    Results showed that the chimps, while no more accurate than the people, could do this faster.
    Seems to me that the headline is slightly misleading. It's not that the chimps could do better on the memory tests, they could just do it faster - at least for the 8/10ths of a second test. Later the article shows that the chimps could perform the same when the screen flashed for only 2/10ths of a second. This doesn't necessarily mean that they have a better memory, as this could be attributed to peripheral vision as well.

    • Re:Misleading... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mistlefoot (636417) on Monday December 03 2007, @01:24PM (#21562249)
      Why is this post modded (at time of my reply) off-topic. This is exactly what the article says.

      The Chimps are better at "reacting" then people are. That they do as well as humans when the numbers are flashed on the screen for a longer duration is more of a surprise. The more time that is allowed for memorizing, the better humans should do. This doesn't seem to be the case though. Nothing in the article says whether any tests where done, with say, 5 seconds of showing the numbers on the screen - which would really allow for actual thought and not just 'reaction'....

    • Re:Misleading... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Smidge204 (605297) on Monday December 03 2007, @01:48PM (#21562571)
      FTA:

      They saw nine numbers displayed on a computer screen. When they touched the first number, the other eight turned into white squares. The test was to touch all these squares in the order of the numbers that used to be there.

      Results showed that the chimps, while no more accurate than the people, could do this faster.


      I requoted that part because the test they are talking about is important.

      If you can see these numbers on the screen for any length of time you want, then "reaction" becomes irrelevant. I interpret this portion of the article to say the chimps could perform at the same accuracy as the humans while taking less time to memorize and recall the numbers' locations. That certainly sounds like "better" short-term memory to me... increased speed without loss of accuracy.

      The SECOND test also involved remembering the location of five numbers on the screen and recalling these locations in the correct order, except the subjects had less than a second to study them. This test indicates that the chimp was again able to memorize the pattern faster and with more accuracy than humans.
      =Smidge=

      • Re:Misleading... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Jesus_666 (702802) on Monday December 03 2007, @02:29PM (#21563069)

        That certainly sounds like "better" short-term memory to me... increased speed without loss of accuracy.
        Whether or not that is better depends on oter parameters, as well. SRAM is much faster than DRAM, yet modern high performance desktops rely on DRAM - because SRAM has a lower density than DRAM. Likewise, the chimpanzee brain could allocate more resources to short-term memory, on the expense of other functions our brains tend to emphasize. The result would be faster short-term memory that still wouldn't neccessarily be desirable for us.

        • Bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 03 2007, @07:21PM (#21566293)
          I was jailed once.

          There we had phone cards with a long number (12 digits) and we needed to buy them to be able to call our families.

          Almost everyone there were able to memorize that number just reading it once. A short glance will mean you lost your credit. Most people would memorize the numbers in privacy to avoid showing the card in public. I aquired that hability in just 5 minutes of needing it. I could only do it once, when I was really inside everybody would be ultracareful with their cards.

          So the only reason humans don't do it is because we are lazy and rely on notebooks and other stuff to remember things. Put pressure on the test subjects and they will outperform the chimps.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by wizardforce (1005805)
      not onyl that but

      The other factor is the youth of Ayumu and his peers. The memory for images that's needed for the tests resembles a skill found in children, but which dissipates with age. In fact, the young chimps performed better than older chimps in the new study. (Ayuma's mom did even worse than the college students).

      oops? the age groups are not on equal ground. try the same thing with humans and you might just see the same thing occur. it would be amazing if the chimps' ages were more representat

    • Brain speed != intelligence (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EmbeddedJanitor (597831) on Monday December 03 2007, @02:20PM (#21562969)
      The speed at which you see and respond is not at all linked to intelligence. It is far more linked to your need for this speed (ie. due to evolution), priimarily driven by your need to control motion and for feeding.

      For example animals which feed by catching fast moving bugs in their mouth (eg. birds and fish) need to respond very quickly otherwise their food is long gone. Animals that eat berries and kill their food or have paws and hands don't have to be that fast. Animals that live in trees etc and need to judge distance better (monkeys etc) need faster responses than ground based humans etc.

      I forget what this effect is called, but I understand that trout have a speed 20x that of humans. That's to be expected when a trout has to feed by eating little bugs coming past it in fast moving water. The trout has to be able to respond quickly to make an energy efficient movement and get the bug before it has gone. The energy in a small gnat is not enough to waste on charging around the stream.

      As a result of this, I'm not at all suprised that a chimp beats a human in a low level counting game.

  • I Wonder (Score:4, Funny)

    by sirgoran (221190) on Monday December 03 2007, @01:14PM (#21562105) Homepage Journal
    Was the test given before or after the students had a kegger?
    It might explain the chimps score.

    • Re:I Wonder (Score:4, Interesting)

      by garcia (6573) on Monday December 03 2007, @01:28PM (#21562303) Homepage
      Was the test given before or after the students had a kegger? It might explain the chimps score.

      While that might have something to do with it I would assume it has a lot more to do with the fact that your typical college student has a ton more on their minds than just a series of numbers for a test. Numerous passwords, telephone numbers, what time/date they have an exam/group meeting/social gathering, several projects to work on that evening, etc.

      I would go so far as to say that the animals compared to the college students in the study have a lot less on their minds.
  • From TFA:"Even with six months of training, three students failed to catch up to the three young chimps, Matsuzawa said in an e-mail."

    Wondering what/how they trained, I'd bet that (some inner) martial arts training would have helped to improve, say, 'speed of holistic perception'.

    CC.
  • "Scientists plan to repeat the experiment using 5th graders against the great apes."

    Run out of contestants for the game show, did we?

    • Re:Mr. Foxworthy... (Score:4, Informative)

      by adamanthaea (723150) on Monday December 03 2007, @01:45PM (#21562539)
      "Hello, Fox execs? Yes, I'd like to pitch a new game or reality show entitled 'Are You Smarter Than a Chimpanzee." What? Come on, it's not like you've got anything else worth watching, especially with the writer's strike."
  • This just reinforces the notion that "Survival of the Fittest" no longer applies to the human race and signifies the beginning of what will eventually become the land from the Planet of the Apes.

  • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by eviloverlordx (99809) on Monday December 03 2007, @01:20PM (#21562179)
    A large group of chimpanzees has produced the collected works of Shakespeare four times faster than the same number of college students, and with fewer spelling errors.

  • Actually, it kind of makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)

    by $RANDOMLUSER (804576) on Monday December 03 2007, @01:20PM (#21562183)
    That a chimp would do it faster. A human would instinctively put a "name" on each number seen, thus slowing down the "processing".

  • Yes, but... (Score:5, Funny)

    by lazlo (15906) on Monday December 03 2007, @01:22PM (#21562207) Homepage
    The chimps scored better than the college students on memory tests, but their term papers were only marginally better.

  • Not a comparison of cognitive ability (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SparkleMotion88 (1013083) on Monday December 03 2007, @01:24PM (#21562251)

    One memory test included three 5-year-old chimps who'd been taught the order of Arabic numerals 1 through 9, ...

    Results showed that the chimps, while no more accurate than the people, could do this faster.
    Seems to me that these chimps were trained to perform this task. They've probably even used the test setup before whereas the humans were probably using it for the first time. I guess I'm not surprised that the chimps were faster than the humans. Also:

    But when the numbers were displayed for just four-tenths or two-tenths of a second, the chimp was the champ. The briefer of those times is too short to allow a look around the screen, and in those tests Ayumu still scored about 80 percent, while humans plunged to 40 percent.
    That says to me that a chimp is able to move its eyes around faster than a human is. This is also something I would expect. So perhaps this result says more about relative visual ability than relative cognitive ability?
    • It doesn't test anything such as deduction and problem solving either, which is where I would bet humans have the advantage.

      Repeat the test with a predictable pattern of numbers (or symbols, doesn't really matter), and have the subjects try to guess the next in the sequence.
    • FTFA:

      What's going on here? Even with six months of training, three students failed to catch up to the three young chimps, Matsuzawa said in an e-mail.

      Since there were 12 student subjects, 9 out of 12 eventually matched/beat the chimps.

      Remember the game 'Simon"?

  • Boringly predictable research. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wolfen (12255) on Monday December 03 2007, @01:27PM (#21562283) Homepage
    The best part about this news story is when you reach the
    end of the article and the researchers reveal that
    their results are basically meaningless because you
      can get the same results by testing children versus adults.

    The real question is how to human children compare with the young chimpanzees.

  • The real question is. (Score:5, Funny)

    by CrazyJim1 (809850) on Monday December 03 2007, @01:29PM (#21562319) Journal
    Did the monkeys have a hat on?
  • Call me a luddite, but with everything modern society forces us to remember/memorize, memorizing jibberish on a test will suffer greatly by the increased load. Hence, monkeys with the reduced load on their memory will outperform their more intelligent cousins.
    Disclaimer: I *am* a College Student.

  • Well no shit... (Score:5, Funny)

    by R2.0 (532027) on Monday December 03 2007, @01:32PM (#21562349)
    I am positive that, after 6 years (2 degrees) of drinking and sleep deprivation, I am significantly dumber than I was going in to school.

  • 5th Graders (Score:5, Funny)

    by mqduck (232646) <(ten.kcudqm) (ta) (kcudqm)> on Monday December 03 2007, @01:40PM (#21562447)

    Scientists plan to repeat the experiment using 5th graders against the great apes.
    I'm having difficulty understanding the reasoning of going from college students to 5th graders. I suppose I could RTFM, but instead I'm going to criticize from the safety of Slashdot.

  • To be accurate, they should have used chimpanzees who were attending college.

  • Flawed Summary (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Thumper_SVX (239525) on Monday December 03 2007, @02:05PM (#21562777) Homepage
    The article itself contains a flawed summary. This does nothing to prove the ability of chimps to memorize numbers better than humans, but it does show a greater ability toward pattern recognition. That's not intelligence. In fact, I'd expect that given that pattern recognition is primarily a function of the ability to recognize a predator and/or food that isn't good for you. Given that we as human beings haven't had any significant predators and really don't forage for food (generally, there are exceptions) for thousands of years, you'd expect those lesser-used parts of the brain to "grow limp". A chimp, on the other hand has a certain biological imperative to be able to recognize predators early in life. Chimps that don't, don't perpetuate.

    There's also a factor that there are some biological differences between our species; like the physical fact that chimps can move their eyes faster and have physically smaller bodies therefore nerve impulses don't take so long to travel to the limbs.

    Frankly, I fail to see what has been proven here. Maybe I'm missing something because I'm not a chimp :)

  • Damn dirty apes taking IT jobs!!! (Score:3, Funny)

    by mlwmohawk (801821) on Monday December 03 2007, @02:49PM (#21563329)
    Think about it, most IT work these days isn't critical thinking and analytical work, but merely the memorization of the latest trends and APIs, and re-writing the same old crap in a new job using a different set of tools. So, monkeys are going to have a leg up. They aren't very much more ill behaved than web designers, don't smell as bad, dress about the same, and they have similar toiletry habits.

    I wonder if they will be any more manageable?

  • Actually makes a bit of sense... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Pedrito (94783) on Monday December 03 2007, @03:39PM (#21563893) Homepage
    Some people seem confused by what the article is saying. It's not a matter of the speed of response. It's that, (at least in the second experiment) given a briefer view of the numbers, the chimps were able to recall the order of the numbers more accurately than people. A view lasting 7/10 of a second, people and chimps did about the same, but when you cut the viewing time to 4/10 or 2/10, the chimp's accuracy didn't go down, while the humans' accuracy dropped significantly.

    As for why this kind of makes sense, if I were to hypothesize on it, I'd say it's probably because we ARE more intelligent that we don't perform as well with the briefer views. There's a good deal of abstract thought going on in how we deal with the numbers and different people deal with them differently. It's this ability of more and deeper abstract thought that's displacing our ability to simply see the whole thing as a single picture, but a collection of items.

    On the other hand, I suspect the chimps are simply seeing a picture and recreating that picture with the tools provided. The picture holds no real meaning to them. There's no indication that the chimps understand what the digits mean. They wouldn't know 3 apples from 4 apples in terms of the digits. But human subjects, on the other hand, assign meaning to those numbers. Patterns might grab our attention. If in the digits, for example, I saw 68 in the series, it might bring to mind the year of my birth and that might distract my attention from memorizing the other digits in the number. A chimp, on the other hand, won't see the digits "02" and think, "Hey, that was the year of my birth."

    And that's not to say animals don't know the concept of numbers. They do, or at least some do. There have certainly been studies to show that dogs can count up to about 5 or so (maybe it was higher) with quite a bit of accuracy, and not as something their taught, but simply intuitively... But I digress. I think the results make a lot of sense. Even though my description is probably not specifically what's going on, I wouldn't be surprised if it were something along those lines. Sure, it may make us less efficient at some simple tasks, but what's more valuable? Being able to accurately remember the order of the digits or to know what they mean?

  • The Number Series (Score:3, Funny)

    by AnalogDiehard (199128) on Monday December 03 2007, @04:05PM (#21564201)
    To the dismay of Hollywood, these were the series of numbers that the chimps successfully repeated:

    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

  • Where the two groups equally motivated? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ChrisA90278 (905188) on Monday December 03 2007, @06:08PM (#21565659)
    I wonder if the motivation was the same. If the rewrd for getting it right was an apple. the chimp might really, really want an apple. A doubt they rewarded the students with fruit and I doubt they gave the chips money. How could they know if the two groups had equal motivation and worked as hard to get a correct answer?

    • Re:If only... (Score:4, Funny)

      by vux984 (928602) on Monday December 03 2007, @01:55PM (#21562661)
      If Tim Burton had know this a few years ago, maybe his crappy remake would have been better.

      I think the real argument is that the remake would have been better if we'd let the chimps make the film instead of Tim Burton.

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