In particular, chimpanzees, which are genetically most similar to humans, have repeatedly proven to be remarkably talented pupils. In a test at the University of Kyoto in Japan, humans and monkeys were again compared with each other.
The numbers one to nine were displayed on a screen in always different sequences and only for a short time. The test persons then had to repeat the series of numbers as quickly as possible.
Although this time the human test subjects were not children but students, the young chimpanzees in particular were far superior. Even when the numbers were only displayed for 210 milliseconds, they were able to reconstruct the order.
However, since the adult animals did not perform better than humans, the researchers now assume that young animals have a photographic memory that is slowly lost over time.
For a long time, the female Washoe, who died in November 2007, was regarded as the "best in class" chimpanzee pupil. Her adoptive father Roger Fouts, communication researcher at the University of Ellensburg in the US state of Washington, had allegedly taught the chimpanzee lady to communicate in American sign language. Fouts claims that Washoe had mastered about 250 words, used them, and even taught other chimpanzees parts of the language.
But as is so often the case in intelligence research with great apes, there have been and still are numerous skeptics. As with other tests, some scientists suspect that Washoe never really understood the language, but only linked cause and effect (association learning).
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator