This allowed the researchers to calculate how well scores on cognitive traits aligned with genetic relatedness. The group of chimps tested had an expansive family tree, ranging from full siblings to fourth and fifth cousins. They used a battery of 13 tests measuring various manifestations of intelligence, such as how the animals dealt with the physical world, reacted to sound, and used tools. To find out how much of that variability is due to genetics, Hopkins and his team assessed the cognitive abilities of 99 captive chimpanzees. "When you're out there working with them all the time, you definitely form some opinions about whether you think they're smart or not so smart," he said. But he also saw a lot of variability among the animals. "So he went and got a flashlight and shined it into his mouth to see farther down his throat," said Hopkins.Īustin was the smartest chimp Hopkins ever encountered, he said. The chimp, named Austin, opened his mouth wide to look at his teeth, but couldn't see them well. A video camera was recording the chimp's actions. Several decades ago, a chimpanzee Hopkins was studying figured out that he could watch real-time video of himself on a nearby television monitor. But human development is heavily influenced by cultural factors, such as formal education systems, and so nature and nurture are difficult to tease apart, Hopkins said.īeing one of the closest relatives of humans, he said, "chimps offer a simpler way to think about that question."Ĭhimps can be surprising in their cognitive abilities, Hopkins noted. Studies of humans have produced similar estimates to the primate study, suggesting that intelligence is approximately 50 percent heritable. This new study adds to growing evidence that animals are not passive machines but rather are sharp, active thinkers. For most of the 20th century, scientists held that animals were like robots, behaving in predictable ways based only on environmental cues, such as reward and punishment. Research on animal learning has been focused almost entirely on the contribution from the environment. (Pictures: " How Smart Are Planet's Apes? 7 Intelligence Milestones.") Genes determine about half of the variability in chimp intelligence and environmental factors the other half, according to primatologist William Hopkins, of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia, and colleagues. The study appears Thursday in Current Biology. Now, in one of the largest studies ever conducted on chimp cognition, researchers report that those individual differences are due in no small part to genetic makeup. But just as for humans, cognitive abilities vary from one animal to the next. Chimpanzees and other great apes are known for their intelligence: They can learn words, play with objects, and even seem to mourn the deaths of their friends.
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