Few have heard that man is superior to his closest relatives in the evolutionary chain - monkeys, not in all cognitive functions. The unique research of scientists from Japan has shed light on the area of our thought processes, in which we are clearly inferior to individual representatives of the order of primates.
Research history
A group of Japanese primate intelligence experts from Kyoto University conducted an incredible study - they compared experimentally the photographic memory capabilities of five-year-old chimpanzee cubs and Japanese university students. As a result of the experiment, scientists came to the conclusion that we still underestimate the intellectual abilities of chimpanzees.
The history of this research has been going on for many years. During this time, Japanese scientists Tetsuro Matsuzawa and Nobuyuki Kawai have achieved seemingly incredible results. They taught a female chimpanzee named Ai Arabic numerals - she was fluent in counting from zero to nine.
The next step in testing Aya's intelligence was an experiment that assessed her short-term memory abilities. A touchscreen monitor was placed in front of the chimpanzee. Numbers appeared on the screen, randomly scattered across the field. At one point, all the numbers were covered with white squares. Aya's task was to click on the squares in ascending order of the numbers behind them. The task is not easy, but after hard training, the chimpanzee learned to quickly memorize the numbers behind the white squares and accurately click on them in the right order.
To eliminate the individuality factor, the scientists included four more representatives of the primate family in the experiment: two female chimpanzees and their five-year-old cubs. Each pair did an excellent job of learning, and during the experiments it was found that young monkeys solve tasks for memorizing numbers much better than adults. The cub of the already known female Aya, named Ayumu, was also connected to the experiments. Notably, Ayumu's memory scores were higher than those of his peers.
Simultaneously with the primates, students of Japanese universities were asked to take a memory test. Surprisingly, the students could not compete with the monkeys in the speed of completing this task. As a control exercise, the scientists reduced the memorization time to a minimum of 210 milliseconds. For students, this time was not enough. As a result, they were only able to complete the task by 40%, while Ayumu completed the task by 80%, while spending significantly less time.
Matsuzawa noted that there is no exact information about how long a chimpanzee can remember the order of numbers in memory. During the experiment, Ayumu was distracted by extraneous sounds, but, returning to the task after 10 seconds, completed it correctly without a single mistake. The possibility of a longer storage of combinations of numbers in the memory of primates has not yet been fully studied.
But even these results are quite enough to conclude that primates are able to solve certain intellectual tasks no worse, and in some cases even better than humans.
Interesting facts
- The rudiments of memory are formed in a person in the womb at the 5th month of pregnancy: the embryo learns to remember and recognize sounds, reacts positively to the mother's voice, familiar music. Peak memory development: 19-25 years old is the best time to get an education. Memory fades after 50 years, and only in people who do not train it.
- US scientists have invented a pill that erases bad memories. The invention is planned to be used in the treatment of patients who have received psychological trauma. The method itself has generated a lot of controversy.
- Other American scientists claim to have learned how to transfer memory from one person to another by extracting an RNA molecule. The result is planned to be used in education, reducing the training time to a minimum. Transferring knowledge to the brain will be as easy as writing information to a USB flash drive.
- The results of another study: classical music has a positive effect on the synthesis of proteins in the body and increases the activity of genes responsible for memory.
- Amazing results of the experiment! Three groups of volunteers memorized pictures in different ways: the first took pictures on a smartphone, the second just looked, the third took pictures and deleted them after a while. Most of the pictures were remembered by the group that did not use any gadgets. A kind of wake-up call for people who replace real life with photo reports.
Despite the huge amount of research on human memory, we must understand that we do not know even a tenth of its potential. But, this does not mean that our memory does not need to be trained. Memory exercises are a great way to keep your intellect in good shape and an incredibly important tool for personal growth.
