Planet of the Apes Begins? (video)

Color This Chimp Amazing

In what seems like a blow for humanity, a very smart chimpanzee in Japan crushes any human challenger at a number memory game. After the numbers 1 through 9 make a split-second appearance on a computer screen, the chimp, Ayumu, gets to work. His bulky index finger flies gracefully across the screen, tapping white squares where the numbers had appeared, in order. So far, no human has topped him.

Ayumu’s talent caused a stir when researchers first reported it in 2007 (SN: 12/8/2007, p. 355). Since then, the chimp’s feat has grown legendary, even earning him a starring role in a recent BBC documentary.

Apparently a chimp, Ayumu, in Japan has a memory that seems to leave a human's own in the dust. In a nutshell, the numbers 1 through 9 appear on a screen in front of the chimp, it has a second or two to memorize them, and then they disappear and reappear randomly ordered. Then the chimp presses the buttons in order as fast as it can. Without a doubt, it goes well beyond what the average human could do.

To truly comprehend what Ayumu can do, you need only watch the 30 second video.

vimeo.com...

(Sorry, I don't know how to embed videos from vimeo. If a mod would like to do this, it would be appreciated.)

There's a researcher trying to disprove the "less evolved" primate's innate memory recollection abilities, and the article goes into a bit more detail on the subject if you're interested, but here's a snippet.

But psychologist Nicholas Humphrey says the hype may be overblown. In an upcoming Trends in Cognitive Sciences essay, Humphrey floats a different explanation for Ayumu’s superlative performance, one that leaves humans’ memory skills unimpugned: Ayumu might have a curious brain condition that allows him to see numbers in colors. If Humphrey’s wild idea is right, the chimpanzee’s feat has nothing to do with memory.

“When you get extraordinary results, you need to look for extraordinary ideas to explain them,” says Humphrey, of Darwin College at Cambridge University in England.

Personally, I feel like Humphrey is offended by the idea that a chimp could be in any way superior to man.. But if you're not one of those crazy ancient-ET subscribers and you believe that science isn't just all lies, you have to acknowledge the fact that we're just another type of primate.

The article also goes on to say Humphrey's explanation is a shot in the dark.

Humphrey’s explanation is “speculative, in the best sense of the word,” says neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran of the University of California, San Diego. Work in his lab has found that synesthesia can give people an edge on visual tasks — the cross-wiring in the brain helps them remember better.

Matsuzawa, who has worked closely for decades with Ayumu and other chimps that excel on these number tasks, is convinced that the animals really do have a superior working memory compared with humans.

Hope everyone enjoys this one as much as I did.

Cesar is born !!

All Hail Cesar

AHA! Missed one!

Interesting, but I think this scientist has a point to prove. I believe a human could do the same, if trained. I mean, we can memorize entire Shakespearean plays in a day or two, line for line. It can be done. I see no reason why a human couldn't take a mental snapshot of a screen and recall it; especially if that's all you did for a decade or however long this chimp has been doing this.

it doesn't matter what species you are!


anybody and anything can be smart!!



if you think about it, some computer programs are much more complex than some bacteria, therefor it is possible that intelligence exists ANYWHERE.

Originally posted by Mr Headshot
Interesting, but I think this scientist has a point to prove. I believe a human could do the same, if trained. I mean, we can memorize entire Shakespearean plays in a day or two, line for line. It can be done. I see no reason why a human couldn't take a mental snapshot of a screen and recall it; especially if that's all you did for a decade or however long this chimp has been doing this.

It's short term memory, not long term.
He's not memorizing where the numbers go, they go into different spots each time.

Also, the scientist was saying he perceives numbers as colors, not that he's memorizing their locations.

reply to post by thegagefather


Yes, what did actors do in the middle ages when memorizing lines, they stored the words in short term memory.

Again, I see no reason why we couldn't memorize a screen in a very rapid fashion and repeat it. Just a quick mental screencap.

Just reread the article, psychologist said he may be seeing the numbers as colors but nobody can know for sure, since the researcher conducting the experiment wont test that.

Originally posted by Mr Headshot
reply to post by thegagefather

 

Yes, what did actors do in the middle ages when memorizing lines, they stored the words in short term memory.

Again, I see no reason why we couldn't memorize a screen in a very rapid fashion and repeat it. Just a quick mental screencap.

Just reread the article, psychologist said he may be seeing the numbers as colors but nobody can know for sure, since the researcher conducting the experiment wont test that.

edit on 20-6-2012 by Mr Headshot because: (no reason given)

Short-term memory (or "primary" or "active memory") is the capacity for holding a small amount of information in mind in an active, readily available state for a short period of time. The duration of short-term memory (when rehearsal or active maintenance is prevented) is believed to be in the order of seconds.

Actors use their short-term memory to rehearse their lines until they enter their long-term memory. They are able to do this because the pattern of what they do never changes, unlike Ayumu's.

That's nothing.I've seen pig's so smart,they can almost pass for human.

Originally posted by 13th Zodiac
That's nothing.I've seen pig's so smart,they can almost pass for human.

edit on 20-6-2012 by 13th Zodiac because: (no reason given)

That's something I've got to see. If you've got a link, you should post it.

Second line.

woot
Pigs ARE human, just check their genom

Originally posted by Miccey
woot
Pigs ARE human, just check their genom

Maybe it's the other way around.

reply to post by thegagefather


He could be a chimp with some kind of "disorder" like the really gifted people with autism sometimes have. They can accomplish amazing things, at the cost of something else. Or, sometimes people or animals are just gifted, and it happens naturally from time to time.

If this chimp were to have babies or father children that could do the same thing, then I'd be wide eyed.

I'm sure if you hunt through enough Chimps, you'll find one that is far and above the others in the area you need him to be. And with enough training, he'll do what you want him to do. Then you add a little cocktail through a needle into his system to improve that, and voila, you have Caesar.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

reply to post by thegagefather


Neat.

But recollection ability does not equal intelligence. How does he do assembling circuit boards? How does he do driving a car? How good is he at LaPlace tranformations?

My dog can remember his way home by smell alone. He doesn't need street signs, or GPS, or address numbers, he just remembers how to get there. He also eats cat poop and digs in the garbage knowing he is going to get beat for it. Remembering something doesn't make you smart.

reply to post by thegagefather


Ayumu doesn't have to worry about the millions of details that occupy the human brain on a daily basis. Just think of the countless process that the higher mind of man is processing at any given moment. If I was doing the test, part of my brain might be trying to figure out how the touch screen works, who built it and how I can get one just like to train my kids. Part of my brain might be concerned with who touched the screen last and if I could get some disease from using it with out sanitizing it or wearing latex gloves. I might also be concerned about what will happen later in the day, planning ahead for a romantic evening with my better half. I might also be trying to recall the memory tricks I learned from some book or Youtube video I watched a few years ago.

This is why some savants can play complicated musical scores after hearing them only once but cannot tie their shoes.
If we could just learn to block out all the distractions and focus on singular tasks we would amaze ourselves.

reply to post by thegagefather

Personally, I feel like Humphrey is offended by the idea that a chimp could be in any way superior to man.. But if you're not one of those crazy ancient-ET subscribers and you believe that science isn't just all lies, you have to acknowledge the fact that we're just another type of primate.

I think it is a perfectly reasonable approach for a balanced skeptic to take.

Evidence will eventually pile up on one side or the other of the debate with conundrums and exceptions requiring deep thought and various modeling of situations with supporting real-world data.

There's a researcher trying to disprove the "less evolved" primate's innate memory recollection abilities, and the article goes into a bit more detail on the subject if you're interested, but here's a snippet.

Master chess players can reconstruct a chess game state after seeing a picture of it for only a few seconds. It would be the exceptional amateur chess player who could accomplish such a task.

Of interest is that this advantage falls away when the pieces are placed in nonsensical arrangements (those not normally possible or seen in a real game) - at which point the master and the amateur have no appreciable difference in accuracy.

The reason for this deals with the nature of our memory - which is network and association based. This is, arguably, what allows us to make inferences when combined with other segments of mind as it evolved to establish causal relationships. More than likely, the nature of our memory architecture is essential in developing the tier of intelligence we have.

To call other primates "less evolved" is silly. They are no more or less evolved than we are (if anything - they should be more evolved, having had considerably longer to accrue mutations and adaptations). Though this does get skewed a bit by population size. The diversity of mutations increase exponentially with population size - which means we may be far more genetically diverse than older species of smaller populations (that have ultimately seen more unique mutations die out due to lower population sizes and higher mortality rates prior to reproduction).

In either case - it's something of a moot point. The ladder ideology regarding evolution is just not in harmony with reality. All organisms evolve so that the individual may pass its genes on to the next (even more fundamentally - it is the function of genetic code to propagate and spread - the two sexes are a product of 'parasite' code that shuts down or destroys other genetic code (such as that which makes a female) that would ultimately lead to the extinction of the entire species). It's not a collective effort on behalf of the species to evolve. All evolution is, essentially, a product of genetic mutations competing within a single species for dominance.

So - it is very well possible that apes retain an operating memory we shed to give us less record-keeping ability (but greater abilities relating to associating memories to draw causal inferences and thus make better tools, out smart competitors, etc). It is also very possible that this ability is more recent than our divergence from each other and represents some kind of advantage in their environment.

It could also be that our natural tendency to recognize patterns and to associate memories interferes with the process of random pattern memory (the brain attempts to remember patterns where there are none - distorting the memory and creating its own errors in handling). Apes, perhaps having less of a natural tendency to do this, can be trained to remember far more random sequences because their brains simply do not try to make sense of it.

For example - many western people, when shown a picture of a simple impossible structure (an improperly drawn 2d rendition of a 3d object that often serves as an optical illusion) have difficulty drawing the structure after only being shown for a few moments. Our brains are taught to infer 3d structure from 2d drawings - and the process interferes with our ability to properly remember the drawing.

Many tribal members lacking western education or influence have no problem replicating the drawing, as they simply see a pattern of lines and do not attempt to infer a 3d structure that is impossible.

There are many possibilities - but none of them really arrive at the conclusion that apes are suddenly going to usurp us in a planet-of-the-apes style manner.

For one - no matter how intelligent they get - they simply don't have the population to accomplish this task.

reply to post by thegagefather

Omg, ju myst bä raigt...
Pigs must have been here before man

reply to post by thegagefather


it seems like cimps are starting to evolve to be more human like just imagine what woud happen if we got out of the way and let them evolve as nature intended

Errrr... this news is as old as the hills, I saw that video several years ago...

Nothing remotely new here, there have been many major breakthroughs since this...