Language makes humans smarter than chimps

With extensive systems of governance and global cooperative networks in place, we probably think we are expert co-operators when compared with other animals or even relative primates, such as chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys.

But how much of this cooperation depends on our ability to speak? Apparently more than we would believe, reports ABC News. Psychologists at the Language Research Centre at Georgia State University conducted a cooperative-rewards game in which participants - be they man, monkey or chimp - had to work in pairs.

The game required participants to cooperate to get the biggest payout - quarters and dollars for the humans, and tasty fruits for the primates. When humans were not told the rules of the game and had to figure things out non-verbally, the way their chimp and capuchin monkey primate counterparts had to, human cooperation did not far outperform that of the other primates.

"Normally, we expect to see 100 percent cooperation with humans when they know the rules of the game.

When we had them go in blind, only five pairs out of 26 developed the best scenarios of cooperation. That's only 20 percent," said lead author Sarah Brosnan.

Humans still outperformed the other primates, who were chosen because they were notoriously cooperative species, but the extent to which the lack of language handicapped the human pairs was surprising, she said.

"We can explain that because it means that humans are very reliant on language," she added.

The study also found that a third of the human pairs happened upon the low reward scenario, just a quarter per round, and then stuck with it throughout the rest of the game.

The Hindu