2014-08-10 07:05:45
Few doubt that humans are more intelligent than chimpanzees. It is clear that the human brain is much larger than that of this animal and, if only because of the quantity, something should be noted for this reason in the intelligence of both species.
However, anyone who has visited a zoo and seen chimpanzees in action will have no choice but to conclude that they are not stupid at all, and this despite having much more hair than us. Seeing these cunning animals interact, one wonders if humans really surpass them in intelligence whatever the problem that must be solved. Obviously, if it is about addition or multiplication, we humans are clearly going to surpass them, but if it is about other types of issues, will we always surpass them?
intelligence games
Researchers at the CalTech Institute in California and the Kyoto Primatology Center in Japan asked themselves this question and tried to solve it by subjecting humans and chimpanzees to simple games in which they tried to guess what the other opponent was going to do. In one of the games, called the Inspection game, two players (either two humans or two chimpanzees) sit with their backs to each other in front of computer screens. To start the game, players must tap a circle in the center of the computer screen and then choose one of two blue squares, displayed on either the right or left of each screen. After having made this first choice, each computer shows on its screen what the other player has chosen (right or left). It is now a matter of making choices so that one of the players correctly chooses the opposite of what his opponent chooses, while the other player must choose the same thing that his opponent chooses. This is repeated about 200 times. The victorious players receive a reward (some fruit juice for the chimpanzees and some money for the humans).
It is evident that the player who wins in this type of game is the one who is able to better predict what his opponent will do. To do this, each player extracts information about his opponent’s past choices, which allows him to try to predict his opponent’s future decisions. This type of situation is not far removed from many situations in our everyday lives, for example when someone tries to predict what another person will do, or the reaction they will have in certain situations. Normally, many of us fail miserably at these types of real-life “games.”
The simplicity of the Inspection game allows the knowledge of game theory to be applied in this case. No matter how smart you are, you won’t always win. Game theory predicts that the best players can do in this game is to reach the so-called Nash equilibrium, named after the mathematician John Forbes Nash, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994, whose life and career inspired the movie A Beautiful Mind, starring Russel Crowe.
Achieve balance
The researchers thus compared the performance of 16 Japanese university students with those of 6 chimpanzees in this game. The students did reasonably well, but far from optimally, that is, they did not reach Nash equilibrium. The chimpanzees, on the other hand, played impeccably and achieved this balance, despite (thanks to?) not being enrolled in university. Furthermore, the chimpanzees continued to play optimally even if the roles were switched between the two players, or the type of reward was changed depending on whether left or right was chosen more frequently.
Just in case the students’ worst performance had to do with their culture, people from the city of Bossou, located in southern Guinea, were also asked to play this game. In this case, the prize for winning was equivalent to one day’s average salary. Despite this, the players did not reach Nash equilibrium either.
The conclusion of these studies, published in the journal Scientific Reports, is that chimpanzees are superior to humans when it comes to predicting an opponent’s decisions. Now the question that remains to be answered is why?
Researchers speculate that chimpanzees have much better short-term memory than humans, which could explain their superior ability in this game. Of course, now it would be necessary to explain why they have a better short-term memory than us.
Another potential explanation lies in the divergent evolutionary paths taken by both species since they separated from their common ancestor. Chimpanzees began a path that led to intense competition among themselves, while humans became, probably thanks to language, a much more collaborative species. Furthermore, the need to use the brain for more complex tasks, such as language, perhaps had a negative impact throughout evolution on the brain areas involved in simpler tasks, such as the one described here.
Be that as it may, in case there was any doubt in these times, these studies show that we are not the most intelligent species in everything. Therefore, a little humility, even in front of a monkey, can be very healthy.
NEW WORK BY JORGE LABORDA.
It can be purchased here:
Chained circumstances. Ed. Lulu
Other works by Jorge Laborda
One Moon, one civilization. Why the Moon tells us that we are alone in the Universe
One Moon one civilization why the Moon tells us we are alone in the universe
The intelligence funnel and other essays
#Cienciaes.com #wonderful #mind #chimpanzees