Apes can remember events from years ago just like humans do, new research finds

The great apes can remember events that happened years ago just like men and women do, researchers have found.

As with humans, a reminder of something in the distant past can jog the memories of chimps and orangutans.

                                               Memories: Great apes like Orangutans can remember events from years ago

Scientists took a group of apes and reconstructed a series of experiments conducted three years previously in which they had had to find hidden tools that could be used to reach food.

Faced with the same set-up of rooms and boxes in which the tools were concealed, the apes immediately knew what to do. It took them only five seconds to find the tools.

Another group of apes which had not had the previous experience were left confused.

A second study showed chimps and orangutans could remember a single tool-finding task carried out two weeks earlier. 

The complexity and speed of the apes’ recall ability was unexpected, said the scientists, whose findings appear in the journal Current Biology.

‘It shows that they were not just walking around the rooms and suddenly saw the boxes and searched for the tools inside them. More probably, it was the recalled event that enabled them to find the tools directly.’

The chimps and orangutans had participated in numerous past experiments with the same team of researchers, the scientists pointed out.