Using eye - trailing technology , investigator showing especially made movies to chimpanzee and bonobo discovered that the copycat not only recall scenes that they ’ve watched just once before , but they can also anticipate activeness successiveness . Their workplace , published inCurrent Biologythis week , suggests that caricature encode information about events into their long - term computer storage and use them later to prepare for thing that are about to take place .
" When you watch a scandalous , aroused issue in a motion-picture show , you remember the upshot well , and subsequently on , when you watch the same movie , you expect the event , " Kyoto University’sFumihiro Kanoexplained in astatement . “ Thanks to a recent advance of state - of - the - prowess centre - tracking technology , we could examine event expectancy by expectant apes while see a movie by agency of ' anticipatory looks ' to the impending events . "
Great apes are know to have excellent memory skills , but previous study focused mostly on retrieving nutrient . But like humans , apes seem to remember worked up events rather than neutral ones . So , Kano ’s team make and star in two 30 - second film with emotionally bear down scenes depicting dramatic acts of aggression committed by a researcher dressed in a King Kong costume . In one video , the ape imitator burst in through a door , and in the other , the fake ape round a person who then retaliated using a toy dog artillery . ( you could look out the television below . )
They then showed the short movies to six chimpanzees and six bonobos on two consecutive Day while tracking their oculus movements to see if the aper noticed and remembered the major plot point in time . On the second wake , the imitator looked at the threshold 3 second before the fake ape showed up and also at the weapons that were later used against the phony anthropoid . In fact , for the second screening , the weapons were commit in dissimilar location , yet the ape still looked at the target and not its former spot .
“ The fact they commend such details from the previous video was really impressive , ” Kano toldNew Scientist . Being able to predict and obviate impend danger or remember what other apes did to negotiate social environment might be important for natural selection . Not to name , the chimpanzee and bonobo seemed to revel watch the movies too . " We were giving juice while showing the videos to them,“Kano tot , " but some of them even forgot to drink [ the ] succus and stared at the movies ! "
