When Ai, mother of the chimp Amuyu, whose mental feats you reported in this article, appeared in a television documentary a few years ago, I reproduced for myself the number-sequence test she performed and found that, after practice, I could easily outperform her. After reading about Ayumu, I tried the number-recall tests that he and the Kyoto students did. With five digits exposed for 210 milliseconds, I had about a 70 percent success rate—not quite as well as Ayumu, but better than the students. I conclude that conditioning plays a large role in performance.
Merlijn van Veen Westervoort, The Netherlands
Log in
Subscribers, enter your e-mail address for full access to the Science News archives and digital editions.
Use up and down arrow keys to explore.Use right arrow key to move into the list.Use left arrow key to move back to the parent list.Use tab key to enter the current list item.Use escape to exit the menu.Use the Shift key with the Tab key to tab back to the search input.