How good is your memory?

New research has just been published with respects to our memory vs. other animals' memory. So, how did humans do against other species? How would your memory hold up against a chimp, an elephant or even a dolphin? I teach a Motor Learning and Performance course at a local university (I've also taught numerous Cognitive Psychology courses too), so I am always drawn to new research on the brain. So, much so - that it is now an assignment for my class....(ha, ha, ha - cue evil professor laughter now). 

In Motor Control and Cognitive Psychology - we learn how the brain works and how it communicates with the body. How our minds and our bodies take in information and learn from the cues we get in our environment. Well, we're not the only one's, in fact, we've been out chimped. That's right - in this recent article published by the Wall Street Journal, chimpanzees might be better at memory tasks than humans.  An excerpt from the article is posted below, it showcases a learning/memory task where a Chimpanzee out remembered humans - even some of the most impressive humans with unbelievable memory by human standards.  We were out scored by a terribly cute Chimpanzee named Ayumu.

 
The Brains of the Animal Kingdom: New research shows that we have grossly underestimated both the scope and the scale of animal intelligence. Primatologist Frans de Waal on memory-champ chimps, tool-using elephants and rats capable of empathy.

The Wall Street Journal ~ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323869604578370574285382756.html?KEYWORDS=memory

Here is an excerpt from the article:
Who is smarter: a person or an ape? Well, it depends on the task. Consider Ayumu, a young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University who, in a 2007 study, put human memory to shame. Trained on a touch screen, Ayumu could recall a random series of nine numbers, from 1 to 9, and tap them in the right order, even though the numbers had been displayed for just a fraction of a second and then replaced with white squares.

I tried the task myself and could not keep track of more than five numbers—and I was given much more time than the brainy ape. In the study, Ayumu outperformed a group of university students by a wide margin. The next year, he took on the British memory champion Ben Pridmore and emerged the "chimpion."

Maybe those silly games on the AARP website aren't so silly afterall. Have a great day and try to remember - something.