Chimpanzees 黑猩猩

Chimpanzees are our closest living relatives. We share almost 99 percent of our DNA¹ with them. It turns out that they share some of our brain power as well. In a study published in 2007, researchers gave adult chimps², adolescent chimps, and college students the same cognitive³ test. The exam involved remembering where a list of numbers—from one to nine—were located on a touch screen monitor.

黑猩猩是人类的近亲，与人类共享了将近99%的DNA。不仅如此，黑猩猩还共享了人类的一部分智力。2007年，研究人员开展了一项研究，他们分别对成年黑猩猩、未成年黑猩猩以及人类大学生进行了相同的认知能力测试。该测试的内容是记住一个触摸显示屏上数字1至9的位置。

Chimps and humans alike saw the numbers in their locations for less than a second. Then they were asked to remember where those numbers had been and show the researchers. The adult primates⁴ and humans performed about the same. But the adolescent chimps left them both in the dust. They remembered each number’s location with far better accuracy. Researchers think that these youngsters were using a type of photographic memory, which allows an individual to recall images with extremely high accuracy even if they only glanced at them for a split second.

黑猩猩和人类一样，要在不到一秒的时间内记住数字的位置，然后研究人员会让他们回忆并指出数字的位置。成年黑猩猩和人类大学生发挥的差不多，然而未成年黑猩猩的准确度令前两组望尘莫及。研究人员认为这些年轻的黑猩猩使用的是一种图形记忆方法，即使它们只瞥了一眼图形，也能用极高的准确度回忆起来。

Goats 山羊

Scientists have thought for a long time that goats are far smarter than their unassuming demeanor⁵ leads many of us to believe. Finally, a group of researchers in Australia decided⁶ to put these barn animals to the test. To do so, they set up a contraption that held fruit at the end. To access the tasty treat, the goats had to use their teeth to drag a rope down, which activated⁷ a lever they had to lift up with their mouths. If they could figure all that out, the fruit was theirs.

科学家长期以来都认为，看似低调的山羊实际上比我们想象的还要聪明。有一群澳大利亚的研究人员终于决定对山羊进行测试。测试用到了一个精巧的装置，里面放着水果。为了吃到美味的水果，山羊必须要用牙拽下绳子，绳子会激活一个杠杆，然后山羊需要用嘴将杠杆抬起。如果它们能搞定这些的话，里面的水果就是它们的了。

Nine out of 12 goats mastered the task after around four tries. When the researchers had all the goats try again 10 months later, the majority still remembered how to work the system.

经过4轮尝试之后，12只山羊里有9只完成了这项任务。研究人员在10个月后又对它们进行了相同的测试，发现其中大多数山羊还记得如何吃到装置中的水果。