Whilst I don’t think the thesis rests on it, it seemed like the strongest (and most surprising to me) evidence if it were true. It actually does provide some evidence that the gap isn’t as large as one might think.
You might want to edit the OP for anyone who doesn’t get round to reading the comments.
The problem with it is that I’m finding many links that seem to argue that chimpanzees actually do have better memory, even compared to comparably trained humans (see this Wikipedia page, for instance). That one link says I’m wrong, but there’s many that say I’m right and I’m not sure what the answer is. It’s unfortunate that I linked to something that said I was wrong! Anyway, I’ll edit the post so that it says that I’m not actually sure.
That’s really interesting. You can actually try a task which was used yourself.
Part of it seems to be that chimps are able to perform the task super fast—I can do the 9 number task on easy, on medium I can do it ok-ish and think if I kept practicing I’d be fairly consistent, but I don’t even have time to take all the numbers in on chimp speed.
I’m also not sure what to make of it. One possibility would be that chimps have an incredible short term memory (something like photographic) but that humans doing the same task have to rely on working memory. That would explain the speed at which they can take in all of the information.
This isn’t what the linked paper says. It claims that
Chimps + practice > humans
but
Humans + practice >> chimps + practice
From the abstract:
Good point. I don’t think my thesis here rests on this fact, but thanks for pointing this error out.
Whilst I don’t think the thesis rests on it, it seemed like the strongest (and most surprising to me) evidence if it were true. It actually does provide some evidence that the gap isn’t as large as one might think.
You might want to edit the OP for anyone who doesn’t get round to reading the comments.
The problem with it is that I’m finding many links that seem to argue that chimpanzees actually do have better memory, even compared to comparably trained humans (see this Wikipedia page, for instance). That one link says I’m wrong, but there’s many that say I’m right and I’m not sure what the answer is. It’s unfortunate that I linked to something that said I was wrong! Anyway, I’ll edit the post so that it says that I’m not actually sure.
That’s really interesting. You can actually try a task which was used yourself.
Part of it seems to be that chimps are able to perform the task super fast—I can do the 9 number task on easy, on medium I can do it ok-ish and think if I kept practicing I’d be fairly consistent, but I don’t even have time to take all the numbers in on chimp speed.
I’m also not sure what to make of it. One possibility would be that chimps have an incredible short term memory (something like photographic) but that humans doing the same task have to rely on working memory. That would explain the speed at which they can take in all of the information.