There was once a belief:
Humans and only humans make tools – Men are the tool makers.
Chimps make tools too!
“We must now redefine men, redefine tools, or except chimpanzees are humans.” ~ Louis Leakey, as described by Jane Goodall in TED 2002.
In 1871, when Charles Darwin first presented his theory of humans and apes sharing a common ancestor, almost no one in the world agreed with him except his closest supporters. His idea raised fiercest furor among the theologians, who obstinately believed that God created humans in His own image. To them, mankind was unique, the only animal with a soul, little lower than the angels…
Undeniably, since centuries ago humans have been arrogantly claiming themselves to be the most superior living species on Earth with most developed complex cognitive functions. However, in Dec 2007, a research outcome presented by the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University has given a big slap in humans’ face. Humans have been proven to be inferior to chimpanzees when it comes to numerical memory.
Ai project, a research program started in 1978, is a research aimed at understanding the chimpanzee cognition through computer interface experiments. The principal subject, Ai (爱), a 32-year-old female chimp and her son, Ayumu (步), 8 years old, have been taught the ascending order of Arabic numerals from 0 to 9 and trained to perform a series of short-term memory tasks on a touch-screen monitor. In a memory test conducted by the research team in 2007, Ayumu (then 7-year-old) and another two young chimps stunned the humans with their superb memory in numerical recollection. The chimps beat a group of university students in recalling the replacement of numbers flashed on the computer screen.
Ai, who learned all these tasks for more than two decades, has a more interesting character. She does not like making mistakes. Renowned primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall mentioned about it in her TED Conference talk. According to Dr. Goodall, when Ai did not score well in her memory game, she desired for another attempt until satisfaction of her performance.
“She has already concentrated hard for 20 minutes or so and now she wants to do it all over again just for the satisfaction of having done it better. And the food is not important. She does get a tiny reward like one raisin for correct response but she will do it for nothing if you tell her beforehand.”, Dr. Goodall told the audience.
That’s what amazes me the most. And yeah, one of my new year resolutions is, I want to learn from a chimp. Hu hu ha ha 
