Testing Attention Changing Capabilities in Kids and Chimpanzees
A group of scientists at the College of St Andrews, in the United Kingdom, collaborating with a colleague from the College of Portsmouth, also in the United Kingdom, has performed tests in young kids and chimpanzees to learn more regarding when attention changing develops in human beings. In their paper released in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the team explains experiments they accomplished with children in between the ages of three and five and grown-up chimpanzees.
Suggestion of the previous research and the realization of the new one
Prior research study has proposed that the human capability to change attention rapidly is one of the characteristics that resulted in dominance over all the other creatures on our planet. Having the ability to switch our thinking from a task at hand to a current event comes quite naturally to many people.
So, as well does the ability to pursue multiple long-lasting goals simultaneously. In this new effort, the scientists in the United Kingdom wondered if other animals, such as chimpanzees, have similar capabilities. To discover, they devised a simple experiment to test a team of children and compared their outcomes with those of many chimpanzees.
In the experiment, volunteers selected a cup set on a shelf under which was hidden a treat– a banana for the chimpanzees and stickers for the kids. To test attention-shifting capability, the volunteers were faced with 2 racks, one colored green, the other blue. Each individual was taught that the treat would be under the green cup on the green shelf, while on the blue shelf, the treat would be under a pink cup. Hence, each participant had to change gears after assessing the shelf color they were looking at.
Search results
The investigators discovered that the chimpanzees did almost similarly well with the three-year-olds, however, lagged far behind the five-year-olds. Four-year-old kids did moderately better than the three-year-old children.
The scientists suggest that chimps have some attention-shifting capability level; however, it is far below that of human beings. They also indicate that the ability in human beings likely arises during an as-yet unknown brain development phase that happens just before kids turn five.
Read the original article on PHYS.
Read more: Monkeys– Not Humans– Made Old Sets of Stone Tools in Brazil, Study Discovers
