Fact of The Day – Chimpanzees Learn Similar To 4 Year Olds

Researchers at the Kyoto University, Japan have studied chimpanzees and how they learn games. They did this by picking 7 chimpanzees. The chimpanzees were different ages and both male and female. The chimpanzees were taught rock, paper, scissors by being shown 2 out of 3 of the hand signals at a time. To show their choice of hand signal, they pressed their choice on a touch screen. If their choice was correct and would win the game, they were rewarded with a piece of apple and a chime sound. If their choice was incorrect and would lose the game, they didn’t receive food but a buzzer sounded.

The researchers then taught the game to 38 children, aged between 3 and 6 years old. The children were given 12 trials and for most of the children it took an average of 5 sessions out of the 12 to complete. However, 5 of the 7 chimpanzees completed the training program with an average of 307 training sessions. While the results of the study shows that not all chimpanzees learn at the same rate (just like humans), the results have also concluded that a chimpanzee’s brain process is similar to that of a four year old child’s.