Well, it seems that monkeys have been shown to be more adaptable than humans. Although a Planet of the Apes scenario still looks quite far-fetched, and our position as the planet's dominant species is still undisputed, it's an interesting study that reveals a lot about the way we think and do things. Published in Nature's Scientific Reports , the study looks at the cognitive flexibility, meaning the mental ability to adapt to new ways of doing things, of humans compared to capuchin monkeys and rhesus macaques. By using a nonverbal computer task, participants were urged to follow one set of rules, which then changed midway during the study. How well the participants adapted to this change in rules provides tremendous insight. Participants, which comprised of 60 humans, 22 capuchin monkeys, and 7 rhesus macaques, were tested on a common cognitive flexibility experiment called the Learned Strategy–Direct Strategy (LS–DS) task. Participants had to learn to complete tasks in a...
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