Chimp Test
Numbers appear on a grid. Click them in order starting from 1. After you click the first number, the rest disappear. How many can you remember?
Numbers appear on a grid. Click them in order (1, 2, 3...). After you click 1, the rest hide. How many can you remember?
The Original Chimp Test
Ayumu the Chimpanzee
In 2007, researchers at Kyoto University found that chimpanzee Ayumu could remember the positions of 9 numbers after seeing them for just 210 milliseconds — outperforming every human tested. This challenged the assumption that humans have superior memory.
How Chimps Beat Us
Researchers believe chimps have superior "eidetic" (photographic) short-term memory. They can capture an entire visual scene in a fraction of a second. Humans evolved to trade this ability for language processing in the same brain regions.