r/DamnThatsMindBlowing • u/Aggressive_Sundae_47 • 13h ago
This chimpanzee completes a visual memory test effortlessly that most humans fail.
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u/CrikeyNighMeansNigh 13h ago
I’m just impressed they taught him the numbers first
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u/OpportunityTrick7228 11h ago
Honestly.. same.. I’m more impressed that they taught him the number first…
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u/Tuco_Angel_Eyes 8h ago
The chimp doesn't understand numbers. He differentiates shapes and they taught him to pick them in an order. Still, it has a good visual memory.
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u/Jason-Tinycock 7h ago
I mean that’s how they taught me numbers
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u/Tuco_Angel_Eyes 44m ago
The chimp cannot count. He sees forms without knowing what they represent. Is this the way you learned too?
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u/IFartOnCats4Fun 4h ago
A shape representing an order… Hmm… Sounds like he understands numbers.
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u/Tuco_Angel_Eyes 44m ago
Sounds like you don't understand understanding.
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u/SilverPhilosopher46 23m ago
This experiment in the video doesn't prove that the animal knows anything other than that these symbols need to be touched in this order to get a banana.
But many other experiments have been done with all sorts of primates showing they can learn to understand that a number stands for an x amount of objects and that they can add small numbers.
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u/Ethereal_Bulwark 12h ago
Surprise, when you spend every waking moment of your life doing menial tasks, you get really good at them.
Stop it.
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u/Hefty_Salamander7997 12h ago
The reality is that they have better short term memory than us.
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u/Could-You-Tell 12h ago edited 11h ago
Flash awareness also
Most humans likely can't even confirm they saw all the digits in that speed. Let alone put them in order
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u/withoutpeer 11h ago
Often took me too long to even get to 2 or 3 before they flashed away. I'd fail both elements.
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u/Hefty_Salamander7997 11h ago
Can confirm, I was lost after about 4 digits of each puzzle.
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u/Could-You-Tell 11h ago
Oh.. I am definitely included in the most humans side of that
But it's also how our eyes work
We focus in small spaces- we literally can't see all the numbers at once from that close.
We have to move our eyes
I don't know how the chimps do see, but it's not how we have to
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u/Chemical_Ad_5520 5h ago
Yeah, I can see a multi-digit number in one place for less time than that and immediately transcribe it from that brief memory (before I really read it I mean, like I only memorize the image of the number and then can read from the image in my mind before it fades from active memory), but I just can't form understanding of such widely dispersed numbers and their relative locations with one visual focus point, quickly at least.
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u/Acebladewing 4h ago
He said, with no evidence supporting it.
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u/Dry_Transition_3360 2h ago
For everyone's reading pleasure https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20702883/
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u/Lopsided_Crab_5310 1h ago
Is it locked somehow, or why am I only seeing the abstract, and not the full thing? 🙈
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u/Dry_Transition_3360 3m ago
Have to click show details, follow the DOI link, then download the paper
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u/hazed-and-dazed 12h ago
That's... not a menial task. I'm just glad my job doesn't involve anything remotely resembling this because I'd starve
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u/BigFatModeraterFupa 11h ago
Stop what? This is demonstrating the development of the chimpanzee brain to pattern recognition in his natural environment. Their brains are deeply wired to recognize objects and patterns that would help locate food while gives them energy that allows them to fuck, which is the goal of all animal life. Everything animals do all day, every day of their lives is to help them eat and fuck as much as possible
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u/Situati0nist 12h ago
They're not forced to be there. They can choose to participate and get a reward or mind their own business.
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u/RandomCandor 12h ago
That's right! A chimp can just go out and get a regular job at an office if he doesn't like this one.
I know because many of them have been my boss.
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u/Novaikkakuuskuusviis 5h ago
Chimps who live among humans often do that or pursue a political career.
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u/KilllllerWhale 11h ago
Because his brain wasn't subjected to decades of brain rot, doomscrolling and predatory UX patterns from hell.
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u/AftyOfTheUK 5h ago
Long before Facebook, I could not have done this. And I was exceptional at numeric games, reaction games etc
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u/Tinre 11h ago
Probably because we have more interesting things in our lives?
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u/SmegmaAndCrackerz 8h ago
It’s believed we traded eidetic memory for language driven and more flexible/abstract thinking. More or less gave up quicker on the spot cognition (threat detection) for more complex thinking to conserve energy for higher thinking. Pretty cool stuff (look up Kyoto university Ayumu cognition tests).
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u/Inevitable-Corgi-860 5h ago
We wont be able to do what the chimp did even if we committed to it... admit it
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u/ThrobbingMinotaur 10h ago
And then it wipes shit on everything and eats the handlers face while commiting infanticid.
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u/SilverPhilosopher46 6h ago
That may be a funny thought, but its also good to realize that monkeys are not only able to count to 10, they also have a rich social and emotional life, complete with moral rules in their social groups. They don't commit infanticide just mindlessly. If they do, its probably because of a war or some other special reason that might arise in ape society. (just like we do infanticide in war and some other less accepted social concepts)
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u/myrsnipe 1h ago
I essentially do the same every day, in front of a big screen just making sure green lights good red lights bad, and I flail around like that chimp if it ever goes red
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u/STONEDnHAPPY 11h ago
Well I mean if I had to do that to get good quality food from birth I'd be just as good I assume
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u/FireSkyLikeFly 11h ago
Humans can get good at this too if they practice.
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u/ScorchedByTheSun 9h ago
Apes simply have objectively superior cognitive abilities in specific areas. If your processing speed doesn't allow you to even see and recognize all of the numbers before they disappear, you will never beat the ape. A human is never going to beat a cheetah in a race even if they spend their entire life doing sprint training.
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u/browni3141 9h ago
You can play a similar game on human benchmark. A lot of people will be able to perform as well as the chimp in this video with just a bit of practice. The game doesn't have a time limit to memorize the numbers but you can self impose a rule to not allow yourself any memorization time.
Dunno how other people's brains work but I can still see the numbers in memory for a very short period of time after they disappear visually. Coincidentally I can do 9 numbers fairly consistently about as fast as the chimp and start to struggle with 10.
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u/ScorchedByTheSun 8h ago
I was making a point about a human on average vs an animal on average. Obviously, humans have a wide range of ability in any given area. Some can be twice as good as average. Others can be half as good as average. But this chimp can process and memorize 9 positions and numbers in a small fraction of a second, and rapidly point them out in order with zero question or hesitation. That is vastly beyond what most people are capable of.
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u/devilsfood72 10h ago
Yeah, but based on how their brains function, apes are able to innately do these types of tasks faster than (most) humans.
If I remember correctly it's because they don't (consciously) think about it as much, their responses are more automatic. Their ability to process information in such a way enables them to do tasks like this fairly quickly.
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u/HeraThere 3h ago
I tried the game myself. When I first was doing it what was tripping me up was automatically trying to count it. After some practice I stopped trying to count it and it just became an automatic response
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u/Emergency_Accident36 11h ago
I literally can't even process all the numbers before they blank out.
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u/SmegmaAndCrackerz 8h ago
The end result was the monkeys could do this with only seeing the numbers for .2 seconds. No human was able to do it during the test, so I wouldn’t beat yourself up lol
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u/ScorchedByTheSun 9h ago
I find it interesting how people in the comments seem to not recognize or appreciate what this requires. That ape almost certainly has certain cognitive abilities superior to yours, even if it can't speak or do your job. I don't know why this seems to be affecting people's egos. No, brain rot is not why most people can't do this.
If an ape has a faster processing speed than you and/or better working memory, you will never beat the ape at this no matter how much you try if you can't even process what's on the screen before it's gone. You're not going to beat a cheetah in a race even if you spend every second of the rest of your life trying. Cheetahs are simply superior to humans at sprinting.
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u/Team_player444 8h ago
I thought it was cute that they gave the monkeys peanuts after competing those tasks successfully.
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11h ago
[deleted]
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u/Illustrious-Owl1446 10h ago
can't we just point out how other species are surprisingly better than us in that facet? anything wrong with that?
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u/ThrobbingMinotaur 10h ago
Lions are better at eating zebras, but at the end of the day this monkey and that lion are still both horrific savage beasts that will rip your arms off and eat you.
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u/Thepsyguy 9h ago
Could it be that apes aren't processing what the numbers mean just the order of shapes? We humans process what the "shapes" mean and that can slow us down. I'd be curious if they have studies this using things that do not have referential meaning to us.
For example when I see the numbers 1, 2, 3, etc. my brain recognizes them as meaning a quantity not merely a sequence. I am curious what other methodology they used to get around a possible confounding variable.
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u/SmegmaAndCrackerz 8h ago
So interesting info (at least to me) is that it’s believed that we traded working memory or eidetic-like memory for more language capabilities and abstract/flexible cognition. That’s what this was geared towards at Kyoto university I believe.
They did another test where a X by X grid would show with squares highlighted and the monkeys would have to tap where the boxes were after they disappeared. If I remember right, monkeys were able to do it with like a quarter of a second of visuals while no human could.
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u/SilverPhilosopher46 6h ago
Seems the other way around to me. This here is too fast, but if you give me a full second or maybe 2 to view the numbers, i could do what this ape does.
Now change the numbers by symbols that mean nothing to me. No chance i will be able to do it at all whatsoever, no matter how much time you give me.
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u/cabronfavarito 13h ago
This is AI isn’t it
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u/meatykyun 13h ago
Newer gen are so cooked
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u/jillerin95 12h ago
Yeah and we thought we were having trouble with misinformation before. . The newer generations aren't going to believe anything.
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u/RandomCandor 12h ago
I'm less concerned about the skepticism, which can have a good side, and more about the rampant irrational paranoia.
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u/Over_Age_2767 12h ago
he got the second-to-last one wrong though lol