Very interesting article from the BBC on the apparent ability of chimps to estimate volumes of liquid from the visual evidence of it being poured into containers. In other words they can track continuous quantities, like pouring liquid, not just finite quantities like pieces of fruit etc. As the article explains:
In the first experiment, Dr Beran poured quantities of fruit juice from a 600ml syringe into a clear cup and opaque cup. The chimps watched as he did so, and then choose the larger to drink. It did not matter if Dr Beran poured 100ml, 200ml, 300ml or so on up to 600ml into either cup (one UK pint = 568ml). More than three quarters of the time, the chimps would select the larger volume.
Crucially, by pouring the liquid into opaque containers, the chimps could only see how much was being poured, not how much had accumulated in the measuring cup. That means the chimps could accurately visualise or understand how much liquid was being poured, rather than collected.
"They had to watch juice pour into containers and once the juice was there, it was out of sight. So they had to remember how much juice is there, just from seeing it fall," Dr Beran told the BBC.
There was more:
In a second set of experiments, the chimps had to choose between a clear cup already containing a certain volume of juice, and another they couldn't see, but into which was poured a drink. That meant the chimps could not take the relatively easy option of timing the pouring events, and choose whichever cup had liquid poured into it for longer.
"This is a complicated feat because there are no cues such as duration of pouring or height of the liquid that can be used," explains Dr Beran. "They must represent and compare the poured amount to the visible amount, and estimate which is larger."
Again the chimps easily appreciated the difference.
Beran's results are really the first to strongly argue that chimps, in one domain at least, have a grasp of folk physics.
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