The idea of chimps outperforming humans in mental skills is extraordinary. Can you give us some examples?
One powerful example is short-term memory. Imagine a chimp that has already been trained to count to nine looking at a computer screen on which the first nine numerals flash up briefly before they turn into identical white squares. The task is to press the squares in ascending order of the numbers they have replaced. All our adult chimps do this as well as humans, or slightly better, and the performance of their infants exceeds theirs. The same superiority of infant over adult…
