I watched a program about how clever monkeys are last night. It was really interesting, and one experiment stood out in particular. Its aim was to find out if two chimps could figure out how to cooperate with each other. Here is a map of the experimental setup:
There are two monkeys (called 1 and 2). Monkey 2 is in a cage all by himself, seperated from monkey 1 by a door. Monkey 1 can open the door by pressing the button in his cage.
Outside of monkey 1's cage there are two delicious bananas on a wooden plank. There is a rope draped around the plank such that if both sides of the rope are pulled at once the plank will slide towards the cage allowing access to the bananas.
The two sides of the rope are situated further apart than monkey 1 can reach. If he wishes to get the banana he will have to allow monkey 1 into his cage so they can pull one side of the rope each.
Watching this on TV was brilliant! Monkey 1 gave each end of the rope a tug and realized that he couldn't get the banana. Then he tried to reach both ends of the rope at once, failed, and then looked at monkey 2 for a bit. You could almost see him thinking "Well really I don't want to share the bananas...". After a little bit he wandered over to the button, let monkey 2 into the cage and they both pulled the rope and had a banana each.
It was really weird watching the little guys. You could actually see monkey 1 figuring out the problem bit by bit. I was seriously unaware how clever they were. In the same program we got to see rudimentary monkey language, monkey culture and lots of other fun and exciting things!
Probably the best bit though was when they tried the experiment a second time with the ropes close enough together that monkey 1 could pull them both. Monkey 2 went absolutely apeshit (do you see what I did there) as monkey 1 just completely ignored him and got the bananas for himself.
There are two monkeys (called 1 and 2). Monkey 2 is in a cage all by himself, seperated from monkey 1 by a door. Monkey 1 can open the door by pressing the button in his cage.
Outside of monkey 1's cage there are two delicious bananas on a wooden plank. There is a rope draped around the plank such that if both sides of the rope are pulled at once the plank will slide towards the cage allowing access to the bananas.
The two sides of the rope are situated further apart than monkey 1 can reach. If he wishes to get the banana he will have to allow monkey 1 into his cage so they can pull one side of the rope each.
Watching this on TV was brilliant! Monkey 1 gave each end of the rope a tug and realized that he couldn't get the banana. Then he tried to reach both ends of the rope at once, failed, and then looked at monkey 2 for a bit. You could almost see him thinking "Well really I don't want to share the bananas...". After a little bit he wandered over to the button, let monkey 2 into the cage and they both pulled the rope and had a banana each.
It was really weird watching the little guys. You could actually see monkey 1 figuring out the problem bit by bit. I was seriously unaware how clever they were. In the same program we got to see rudimentary monkey language, monkey culture and lots of other fun and exciting things!
Probably the best bit though was when they tried the experiment a second time with the ropes close enough together that monkey 1 could pull them both. Monkey 2 went absolutely apeshit (do you see what I did there) as monkey 1 just completely ignored him and got the bananas for himself.
