New York, Jun 17 : A new study has suggested that human intellect has a very ancient history -- after scientists found that individual monkeys perform consistently on numerous different tests of intelligence.
A team at the Harvard University, led by Indian-origin scientist Konika Banerjee, has found that some traces of human intelligence such as a sense of numbers, or the ability to use tools, lurk in primates, the 'New Scientist' reported.
"We were essentially looking for evidence of a general intelligence factor -- something that would be an evolutionary homologue of what we see in humans," Banerjee said.
Working with 22 cotton-top tamarins, the scientists tested all the monkeys on a wide range of cognitive tasks, 11 in total. "What we did here was, very crudely, create a monkey IQ test," Banerjee said.
In most tasks, the monkeys ended up in clear-cut groupings -- above average, average, and below average.
For instance, in one test, animals had to reach around a plastic barrier to obtain a raisin placed right in front of them, but behind the barrier. The smartest quickly figured out the trick, another group went straight for the raisin before realising a reach-around was needed. Ze
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