Chimp Beats Humans in Memory Test

[T-Diddy]

The more important question is, "What does short-term memory have to do with intelligence?" I'm not sure they are related at all. I know a kid who has Down's Syndrome with a better memory then anything short of a photographic memory, and that still doesn't make him intelligent.

Incidentally, there are a number of mental activities a certain group of animals are better at then humans. That doesn't make them more intelligent.

 

[Roboramma]

The chimp does not have the need to internally verbalize each number as it is seen. We do.

What makes you think that?

I can accept, as you said upthread, that the fact that we do internally verbalize each number as it is seen might interfere. But I don't accept that we can't remember or acknowledge one without internally verbalizing it.

After all, people are capable of registering both words and numbers without even noticing that they've done so.

 

[Freethinker]

Good idea. But even with other symbols I'd still put my money on the chimp for this particular cognitive skill: he'd certainly beat me. I looked at the video and there's simply no way I could recognise the numbers fast enough. I doubt it would make things any better for me if the numbers were replaced by symbols that have no meaning for me: in four tenths of a second or less my brain just doesn't have the time to take in the information.

I would also expect the chimp to be better because the human brain needs more "bandwidth" to do all of the categorizing and other actions that we perform. We simply can't look at the numeral "1" without processing it into more complex concepts. Simpler tasks like this would probably be easier with a somewhat simpler brain. Throw in colors and sizes for the numerals and require them to be sorted by whichever the screen directs would probably hurt the chimps chances quite a lot.

I also seriously doubt that many students spent any significant amount of time learning over six months.

 

[articulett]

Yes... but they've had more generations between us and our last common ancestor because they breed at earlier ages... we should expect some things about them to be "more evolved".

Hmph.

Spawn early; spawn often... and maybe your descendants will beat theirs.

 

[fls]

Shouldn't we be wondering what's up with psychology students rather than chimps?

Linda

 

[casebro]

Good point, Linda. Selection bias has not been eliminated. Perhaps they should have used math students? Baseball players? Pinball players?

 

[Mr. Scott]

My hypothesis is that chimps have better eidetic memory then humans, a skill we have atrophied. I know an artist who claims to have this type of memory, commonly known as "photographic memory."

In one experiment I read about in Scientific American, subjects were flashed a picture of the Cheshire cat for a second or two, and only after it was gone, were asked to recall how many stripes were on its tail. Subjects with eidetic memory could recall the image and count the stripes. Those without it couldn't because they recalled an interpretation of the image, not the image itself. Most spectacularly, people with this ability could be shown one side of a stereoscopic image in one eye, then a while later, the other eye view in the other eye, and they could combine the remembered view of one eye with the present view of the other eye into a stereoscopic view (and correctly infer what objects were near and what were far).

I suspect this skill is largely useless to modern humans and perhaps interferes with sophisticated interpretation of images, so either the genetic program for the mechanism is degraded, or it is atrophied in individuals as they mature (young children were more likely to have this skill than adults).

 

[BenBurch]

What makes you think that?

I can accept, as you said upthread, that the fact that we do internally verbalize each number as it is seen might interfere. But I don't accept that we can't remember or acknowledge one without internally verbalizing it.

After all, people are capable of registering both words and numbers without even noticing that they've done so.

We *feel* that need, but we do not have to act on it. As I also said the key seems to be to quiet the internal dialog.

 

[BenBurch]

Mr. Scott, there is one remarkable human who was in the news a few months back who literally remembers everything that has ever happened to him in exacting detail. You pick a date, any date, and he can tell you what the weather was, what he read in the paper, the score of his footie team, etc. And where those details are verifiable he is always correct.

 

[jimbob]

It would be interesting to see how chimps do compared to e.g. people with Asperger's, or other deviations from the "typical" human brain.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

The more important question is, "What does short-term memory have to do with intelligence?" I'm not sure they are related at all. I know a kid who has Down's Syndrome with a better memory then anything short of a photographic memory, and that still doesn't make him intelligent.

I would think it was important in forming a "train of thought" or line of reasoning. Remembering the individual steps in reasoning seems important to me.

Incidentally, there are a number of mental activities a certain group of animals are better at then humans. That doesn't make them more intelligent.

I would think it's possible for animals to have some forms of intelligence that rival ours in the same area. I don't really think that "intelligence" is just one thing or comes in one form.

 

[andyandy]

you can watch all the various vids of the tasks here

http://www.pri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/ai/video/video_library/project/project.html

clever chimps....though they should have tested orangs