Chimps have better short-term memory than humans

[jimmy olsen]

Seems like it would be advantageous to humans as well. I wonder, did this ability evolve after the chimp-hominid divergence, or has it been lost by us for some reason?

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50834842/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.USFXFWfVCVE

Chimps have better short-term memory than humans
The incredible short-term (or "working") memory helps chimpanzees survive in the wild

By Douglas Main
updated 2/16/2013 6:21:28 PM ET

Chimpanzees may have more smarts than humans, at least regarding short-term memories, new research suggests.

A Japanese researcher presented a video showing the remarkable abilities of a chimpanzee named Ayumu, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Thursday. When the numbers 1 through 9 appeared randomly on a screen and then disappeared, the chimpanzee was able to recall the exact sequence and location of each number. Ayumu has also learnt numbers 1 through 19 and is able to touch each one in ascending order, which hasn't been shown before, Tetsuro Matsuzawa, a researcher at Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute, told Livescience.

As Matsuzawa showed the video to a room of scientists and journalists, murmurs of amazement were heard. "Don't worry, nobody can do it," Matsuzawa said, with an almost mischievous smile. "It's impossible for you."

A select few humans have such abilities, but these are typically people with savant syndrome, which is accompanied by severe mental disabilities; it's simply beyond the powers of an ordinary human, Matsuzawa said. On the other hand, six out of six chimpanzees tested could rapidly remember the location and order of nine digits, he said.

This incredible short-term (or "working") memory helps chimpanzees survive in the wild, where they often must make rapid and complex decisions. Working memory is an active form of short-term memory, a mental workspace that allows the brain to juggle multiple thoughts simultaneously.

For chimps, the amazing working memory likely helps the animals navigate the branches of huge trees to feed, for example, or decide what to do when competing groups of animals are threatening one another, he said.

[Eddie Teach]

Seems like it would be advantageous to humans as well. I wonder, did this ability evolve after the chimp-hominid divergence, or has it been lost by us for some reason?

I'm sure we discarded it. Not worth the energy cost.

[mongers]

What was I going to post ?

[Viking]

Orangs also have a fantastic memory. They manage to catalog and remember where and when trees fruit ripen as well as remembering "pathways" through the tree tops that they can traverse. They do this for a very large territory. Thats how they compete with birds to get there first.

[mongers]

So Chimps could solve the travelling salesman challenge, seems rather appropriate. 

[PDH]

Before literacy became common people commonly remembered huge lists of things.  I would say that the "giving up" of this kind of memory is fairly recent.  We don't need it anymore.

[Admiral Yi]

Before literacy became common people commonly remembered huge lists of things.  I would say that the "giving up" of this kind of memory is fairly recent.  We don't need it anymore.

Typically not stored in short term memory, no?

[PDH]

Before literacy became common people commonly remembered huge lists of things.  I would say that the "giving up" of this kind of memory is fairly recent.  We don't need it anymore.

Typically not stored in short term memory, no?

Well, it is semi-short term (if I get the nomenclature correct) - people could be given lists of things, often manifests, and they could recite them later to a clerk.

[PDH]

The technique in the Middle Ages was likened to "walking through a building" where each room had a few things in it - people could remember quite long lists that way by subdividing each entry.

[mongers]

The technique in the Middle Ages was likened to "walking through a building" where each room had a few things in it - people could remember quite long lists that way by subdividing each entry.

Indeed and the classical Greeks used it before them.

[jimmy olsen]

Not short term, but I'm always impressed when my kids memorize their text book. Useless, but impressive.

[Viking]

The technique in the Middle Ages was likened to "walking through a building" where each room had a few things in it - people could remember quite long lists that way by subdividing each entry.

Memory training today often has the person construct a room or a house or some sort of space which he is in with objects and relate those objects to memories. I find it works just as well with stories rather than rooms and objects. The way I remember phone numbers is to remember them as sets of equations. e.g. my own phone number is ABCA(B+C)A(A-B)(B-C) right now, with the letters standing in for numbers.

[Admiral Yi]

Well, it is semi-short term (if I get the nomenclature correct) - people could be given lists of things, often manifests, and they could recite them later to a clerk.

Ah.  I thought you were talking about stuff like reciting epic poems.

[PDH]

What is interesting to me, as you might have guessed from my jumping in, is how human memory has changed in the last 500 or so years.  Some of the memory marvels of today appear in late Medieval documents as fairly routine stuff.

The human brain was in bodies like these for at least two hundred thousand years before we figured out a good way to store knowledge outside of the mind.

[Tonitrus]

Not short term, but I'm always impressed when my kids memorize their text book. Useless, but impressive.

I always thought learning a language is all about memorization.