"Natasha Einstein" the Chimpanzee

For the first task, the chimps had to find hidden food, testing their spatial knowledge. For the second, the chimps wielded a tool -- avoiding a trap -- to again obtain a food reward. The remaining tasks demonstrated understanding of things like color, size and shape.


"We identified some individuals who consistently scored well across (the) multiple tasks," wrote the authors, who again made note of Natasha, who aced nearly every task.

The researchers could not identify "a general intelligence factor." They instead indicate that ape intelligence might be a bundling of skills related to learning, tool usage, understanding of quantities, and an ability to reach conclusions based on evidence and reasoning.

As the saying goes, necessity may be the mother of invention and, at least in some cases, one reason behind chimp cleverness.

Call, for example, told Discovery News about chimps that make tools for extracting termites out of mounds. The process requires several steps.

"They uproot the stem or use their teeth to clip the stem at the base and then remove the large leaf from the distal end by clipping it with their teeth before transporting the stem to the termite nest, where they complete tool manufacture by modifying the end into a 'paint brush' tip by pulling the stem through their teeth, splitting the probe lengthwise by pulling off strands of fiber, or separating the fibers by biting them," he said.


As for why only some chimps go through such an elaborate process, "a lot depends on the ecological constraints and needs," he said.

In terms of other animals, Hermann and Call mention the dogs Rico and Chaser, who knew the meaning of hundreds of words.

"Interestingly," the scientists point out, "all of these dogs (considered to be very smart) are border collies. And many of their owners reported that they did not train the dogs to play the fetching game; it was the dogs who trained them!"

The jury is still out on what exactly constitutes such cleverness. The researchers propose that more studies be conducted, with "tasks that capture cognitive, motivational and temperament dimensions."

That's because, in part, a willingness to learn and a positive attitude seem to make as big of a difference in dogs, chimps and other animals as they do in humans.


Tags: Animals, Chimpanzee, Escaped, Great Apes, Learning


LINK: http://news.discovery.com/animals/ape-genius-chimpanzee-intelligence-120826.html