CHIMPANZEES – and young ones at that – have outperformed humans at a cognitive task for the first time. While chimps are not going to be winning any Nobel prizes just yet, the finding highlights the flexible nature of chimp intelligence and adds weight to a theory of the evolution of language.
Three adult female chimps, their three 5-year-old offspring and 12 university students were tested on their ability to memorise the location of the numbers 1 to 9, which appeared at random locations on a touch screen. The chimps had previously been taught the ascending order of the numbers. During the…
