Tuesday 4 December 2007

Young Chimps Have Better Memory Than Humans

A scientific study in Japan has shown that young chimps perform better than their mothers and university students at a simple short term memory test. The subjects are shown numbers on a screen and then have to remember which numbers were where.

The chimps had previously been taught how to count from one to nine and the results indicate that they may have a photographic memory. Could be that by using students instead of "normal" people skewed the odds in favour of the chimps.

Maybe it would be safer to entrust our personal data to these chimps instead of the chumps running our government?

You can read the full story here.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

What the study failed to mention, however, was the number of times the Chimps ate their own poop during the study period, so that has to count for something doesn't it?

Doesn't it?

Whichendbites said...

On the subject of chimps, I've posted this http://whichendbites.wordpress.com/2007/08/20/chimps-without-hoods-2/

and they have many qualities that we should be aware of. They don't take crap from the delinquents for a start.

Sezme said...

I wonder if they were distracted by thoughts of purpose, will, family, friends, and all of life's distractions while taking the memory test?

:)

(Hey, I could've made a lame joke about wanting to say something, but not being able to remember what I wanted to say.)

phlegmfatale said...

On the other hand, these chimps weren't imbued with an x-box or i-phone habit or television addiction prior to the tests, were they? I think they need to bring the chimps up to human speed vis-a-vis the bad habits (parity, please) before they can definitively state who's better at what.

DBA Dude said...

jt, only if the students were doing it as well.

WEB, very thought provoking post - reading the UK polis blogs I had often wondered from where all these feral kids had appeared.

rt, they were probably just wondering when the next banana was going to arrive :)

Phlegmmy, Now that is just plain evil :)

phlegmfatale said...

Um, that's leveling the playing field, darling!