Study turns to ape intellect
2012-06-25 08:30
Washington - The more we study animals, the less special we seem.
Baboons can distinguish between written words and gibberish. Monkeys seem to
be able to do multiplication. Apes can delay instant gratification longer than
a human child can. They plan ahead. They make war and peace. They show empathy.
They share.
"It's not a question of whether they think - it's how they think,"
says Duke University scientist Brian Hare. Now scientists wonder if apes are
capable of thinking about what other apes are thinking.
The evidence that animals are more intelligent and more social than we
thought seems to grow each year, especially when it comes to primates. It's an
increasingly hot scientific field with the number of ape and monkey cognition
studies doubling in recent years, often with better technology and neuroscience
paving the way to unusual discoveries.
This month scientists mapping the DNA of the bonobo ape found that, like the
chimp, bonobos are only 1.3% different from humans.
Says Josep Call, director of the primate research centre at the Max Planck
Institute in Germany: "Every year we discover things that we thought they
could not do."
Call says one of his recent more surprising studies showed that apes can set
goals and follow through with them.
Orangutans and bonobos in a zoo were offered eight possible tools - two of
which would help them get at some food. At times when they chose the proper
tool, researchers moved the apes to a different area before they could get the
food, and then kept them waiting as much as 14 hours. In nearly every case,
when the apes realized they were being moved, they took their tool with them so
they could use it to get food the next day, remembering that even after
sleeping. The goal and series of tasks didn't leave the apes' minds.
Amazing monkey memory
Call says this is similar to a person packing luggage a day before a trip:
"For humans it's such a central ability, it's so important."
For a few years, scientists have watched chimpanzees in zoos collect and
store rocks as weapons for later use. In May, a study found they even add
deception to the mix. They created haystacks to conceal their stash of stones
from opponents, just like nations do with bombs.
Hare points to studies where competing chimpanzees enter an arena where one
bit of food is hidden from view for only one chimp. The chimp that can see the
hidden food, quickly learns that his foe can't see it and uses that to his
advantage, displaying the ability to perceive another ape's situation. That's a
trait humans develop as toddlers, but something we thought other animals never
got, Hare said.
And then there is the amazing monkey memory.
At the National Zoo in Washington, humans who try to match their recall
skills with an orangutan's are humbled. Zoo associate director Don Moore says:
"I've got a PhD for God's sake, you would think I could out-think an orang
and I can't."
In French research, at least two baboons kept memorizing so many pictures -
several thousand - that after three years researchers ran out of time before
the baboons reached their limit. Researcher Joel Fagot at the French National
Center for Scientific Research figured they could memorize at least 10 000 and
probably more.
And a chimp in Japan named Ayumu who sees strings of numbers flash on a
screen for a split-second regularly beats humans at accurately duplicating the
lineup. He's a YouTube sensation, along with orangutans in a Miami zoo that use
iPads.
It's not just primates that demonstrate surprising abilities.
Dolphins, whose brains are 25% heavier than humans, recognize themselves in
a mirror. So do elephants. A study in June finds that black bears can do
primitive counting, something even pigeons have done, by putting two dots
before five, or 10 before 20 in one experiment.
Not as complex
The trend in research is to identify some new thinking skill that chimps can
do, revealing that certain abilities are "not uniquely human," said
Emory University primatologist Frans de Waal. Then the scientists find that
same ability in other primates further removed from humans genetically. Then
they see it in dogs and elephants.
"Capacities that we think in humans are very special and complex are
probably not so special and not so complex," de Waal said. "This
research in animals elevates the animals, but it also brings down the
humans.... If monkeys can do it and maybe dogs and other animals, maybe it's
not as complex as you think."
At Duke, professor Elizabeth Brannon shows videos of monkeys that appear to
be doing a "fuzzy representation" of multiplication by following the
number of dots that go into a box on a computer screen and choosing the right
answer to come out of the box. This is after they've already done addition and
subtraction.
This spring in France, researchers showed that six baboons could distinguish
between fake and real four-letter words - BRRU vs KITE, for example. And they
chose to do these computer-based exercises of their own free will, either for
fun or a snack.
It was once thought the control of emotions and the ability to empathize and
socialize separated us from our primate cousins. But chimps console, and fight,
each other. They also try to soothe an upset companion, grooming and putting
their arms around him.
"I see plenty of empathy in my chimpanzees," de Waal said. But studies
have shown they also go to war against neighboring colonies, killing the males
and taking the females. That's something that also is very human and led people
to believe that war-making must go back in our lineage 6 million years, de Waal
said.
- AP
