记忆力大比拼 猩猩比人更聪明
http://www.huanqiu.com 来源：环球网 进入论坛 2007-12-07 08:39
新闻导读：
如果问你一个问题：“人比猩猩聪明吗？”大多数人的回答一定是“当然”。长久以来，人类一直认为自己是灵长类动物中最具智慧的。但日本京都大学最新研究发现，年轻黑猩猩记忆力出众，远远胜于成年人类。
研究人员将三组黑猩猩——三只母猩猩及其幼崽与9名大学生进行对比研究。研究小组以三种不同的时间间隔将1至9的阿拉伯数字呈现在电脑屏幕上，然后以方框替代这些数字，要求受试标出数字显示的正确顺序。
研究发现，年轻黑猩猩在记忆速度及准确性方面超过大学生。专家解释：这种表现说明人类在进化过程中需要获取其它一些技能，从而导致某些能力退化。毕竟脑容量是有限的。（沈珺）
Chimps have better memory than you: study
Young chimpanzees have an extraordinary memory that is far better than that of adult humans, a Japanese study said Tuesday.
The research, published in the US journal Current Biology, said young chimpanzees can remember numbers flashed on a computer screen after just one glance.
The researchers, led by professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa of the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University, said the findings suggested that humans lost a similar ability in order to gain other skills.
"The capacity of the brain is limited. Perhaps humans gave up older skills in order to acquire new skills, such as languages," Matsuzawa told Japanese media.
"Maybe the same is true as youngsters become adults," he said, noting that chimps' memory capability declined with age.
The young chimps are considered to have "eidetic imagery," or the capability to retain an accurate, detailed image of a complex scene or pattern.
In the multiyear study, the team looked at three pairs of chimpanzees -- three mothers and their offspring born in 2000 -- and tested them against nine human university students.
The apes were taught the order of single-digit Hindu-Arabic numerals and then tested on how they could remember them when displayed in random combinations.
The team flashed the numbers "1" through "9" on a screen at various time intervals -- 0.65 seconds, 0.43 seconds and 0.21 seconds.
The numbers were then replaced by blank squares and the subjects were asked to use the touch-screen to mark the original order.
The young chimpanzees performed better than the university students in both speed and accuracy even when they are interrupted by loud noises, the study said.
"Humans were slower than all of the three young chimpanzees in the response," it said. "In general, the performance of the three young chimpanzees was better than that of the three mothers."
The study is the latest confirming the high intelligence of chimpanzees, who are among humans' closest relatives.
Washoe, a chimp who could communicate 250 words in sign language and was considered the first animal to crack the language barrier with humans, died at age 42 in October in the United States.
