Mason Parry Teresa Potter Anthropology 30 November 2013 Human Primates Are Smarter Then They Seem Have

you ever went to the zoo and took a look at the ape exhibit? What seems just like a hairy mammal on display may be smarter than what meets the eyes. Multiple studies and observations have reveled that human primates are much smarter than they are credited. The average person may underestimate just how intelligent these apes are. They have been shown to use and make tools, plan ahead and communicate with others, and remember patterns faster and more accurate than a human. Human primates are more intelligent then what we thought before thanks to studying and testing. We as humans use tools to make our jobs easier and sometimes to make it achievable at all. Apes have also developed this function as well and what may take us a couple of days to figure out, will take an orangutan a couple of minutes. Anne Russon is a professor in psychology who studied orangutan's and published in USA BSO about her findings. She writes: "Orangutans are very patient and thoughtful. They plan, brood and think in advance. There are numerous cases in which they have proved to be mentally superior to their keepers. Theft from the fridge of humans where they lived was usually only discovered after three to four days . . . . One ape made a lock pick out of a paper clip, which he

used to open the lock of his cage. As he kept it underneath his tongue, the attendants only found out with difficulty" (99-100) Making a lock pick out of a paper clip to unlock his cage I don't think an average person would know how to do that. And the fact that he tried to hide the "lock pick" proves that it was planned and he knew the keepers wouldn't approve of it. Obviously there is more to these primates then just cracking nuts; developing advanced tools just to get a midnight snack definitely shows cognition. Now, have you considered what you're doing right now at this very moment? Besides breathing and living you are reading what I wrote. This is a form of communication. Apes have been shown not only to know how to communicate between each other, but to plan ahead and made decisions. Andrew R. Halloran wrote in his book The Song of the Ape what he observed about how apes plan and communicate. He writes: "Chimpanzees do in fact, make conscious linguistic choices. When the chimpanzee, Oz, found hidden treats inside a pumpkin and chose not to vocalize to his group-mates, we see a conscious linguistic choice" (ch6 pg 148). Here we see that rather than sharing the treats with the others, he decided to keep all of it to himself. Showing that he gave thought of the consequences and chose the choice the benefited him the most. And lastly we have a test that displayed the short term memory of chimpanzees. It showed that they have a far superior short-term memory. Tetsuro Matsuzawa released a video of Ayumu: a chimpanzee who was able to memorize numbers for a short period of time and quickly touch them in order. The Huffington post reported about it saying:

A Japanese researcher presented a video showing the remarkable abilities of a chimpanzee named Ayumu . . . . 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" (huffingtonpost.com).

Watching the video is quite a site to see. Only a few special people would be able to achieve what Ayumu did. Now this doesn't mean much for long term memory of course. But it still pretty impressive and proves that apes are much smarter then what we originally thought they were.

Even though there are only three examples provided, there are many more instances which tested for a understanding of basic human functions. These creatures are obviously more complex than originally thought. It's no wonder why they are considered to be are closest living relativities. I believe due to the simplistic life style they live they can achieve such great lengths when it comes to basic human function. Us humans might be able to make tools out of paper clips or memorize numbers in a matter of seconds (in fact some of us have), but we live more complex lives in which more and more information provides greater goals to achieve. We don't live in a cage (except those in jail) to bother with these simplistic tool making, memorization tasks. Rather we focus on more complex matters. But even if these tasks may be minimalistic for humans, it's much more meaningful when primates are able to do it. It further proves the linkage between humans and apes and provides us with an idea of where we originated.

Sources

Schuster, Gerd, Willie Smits, Jay Ullal, Marrie Powell, and Michael Scuffil. Thinkers of the Jungle.

Halloran, Andrew. The Song of the Ape: Understanding the Languages of Chimpanzees. [New York]: St. Martin's Press, 2012. Print. Korte, Travis. "Chimpanzee Memory Study Suggests Apes' Short-Term Recall Better Than Humans'" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 17 Feb. 2013. Web. 01 Dec. 2013. E-Portfolio http://www.masonparry.weebly.com