Chimpanzees can learn to play Rock, Paper, Scissors, study reveals

Apes are as adept as four-year-old children at age-old hand signal game, researchers say

Saturday 12 August 2017 16:33 BST

The chimps reportedly struggled to learn that scissors beat paper (Getty)

Chimpanzees can learn the rules to the popular hand-signal game Rock, Paper, Scissors, scientists have discovered.

An experiment at the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University in Japan, revealed that though it took them considerably longer, the apes could learn the game as well as young children.

Lead author Jie Gao, of the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University in Japan, said: “The study aimed to investigate whether chimpanzees could learn a transverse pattern by being trained in the rules of the Rock, Paper, Scissors game.

“The chimpanzees’ performance was similar to that of four-year-old children. The primary difference between the chimpanzees and children in the present study was the method of learning.

“Children changed their choice immediately after they made a wrong one, whereas the chimpanzees would often take multiple sessions to correct themselves.”

As well as taking the chimps longer to learn the relationship between the signals, they also struggled to grasp that scissors beat paper.

The scientists used seven chimpanzees of various ages and sexes in the experiment.

They were trained to respond to the hand signals on a computer touch-screen, choosing the stronger of two options – just as the game is played.

First the researchers taught the chimps the paper-rock combination, followed by the rock-scissors one, and finally paper and scissors.

The scientists also taught the game to 38 children aged 3-6 to compare the speed of the learning process.

Who knows when chimpanzees will master chess, Cluedo or Settlers of Catan (Getty) (Getty Images)

Ms Gao said the findings suggested that “children acquire the ability to learn a circular relationship and to solve a transverse patterning problem around the age of four years.”

She said “the chimpanzees' performance during the mixed-pair sessions was similar to that of four-year-old children.”

Where not to visit if you love animals

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1/9Where not to visit if you love animals

Where not to visit if you love animals

Monkey shows

Chimpanzees are forced to perform demeaning tricks on leashes and are often subject to cruel training techniques. Animals who are confined to small, barren enclosures and forced to perform unsurprisingly show symptoms of stress and depression. Chimpanzees have been documented rocking back and forth, sucking their lips, salivating and swaying against enclosure perimeters in distress.

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Where not to visit if you love animals

Marine parks

Some parks confine orcas to concrete tanks and force them to perform meaningless tricks for food - many die in captivity. Orcas are highly intelligent and social mammals who may suffer immensely, both physically and mentally, when they're held in captivity.

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Where not to visit if you love animals

Tiger shows

Tigers are forced to live in an unnatural and barren environment and have to endure interactions with a constant stream of tourists. Since tigers never lose their wild instincts, across the world they are reportedly drugged, mutilated and restrained in order to make them “safe” for the public. However, every year, incidents of tiger maulings are reported at this type of tourist attraction.

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Where not to visit if you love animals

Donkey rides

Sunning on the beach is great for humans – we can take a quick dip or catch a bite to eat when we get too hot or hungry. But it's pure hell for donkeys who are confined to the beach and forced to cart children around on the hot sand. Some donkey-ride operators at beach resorts in the UK even keep the animals chained together at all times.

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Where not to visit if you love animals

Swimming with dolphins

Some marine parks use bottlenose dolphins in performances and offer visitors the opportunity to swim with dolphins. Unfortunately, people are often unaware that these animals are captured in the wild and torn from their families or traded between different parks around the world.

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Where not to visit if you love animals

Canned hunting

Lions are confined to fenced areas so that they can easily be cornered, with no chance of escape. Most of them will have been bred in captivity and then taken from their mothers to be hand-reared by the cub-petting industry. When they get too big, they may be drugged before they are released into a "hunting" enclosure. Because these animals are usually kept in fenced enclosures (ranging in size from just a few square yards to thousands of acres), they never stand a chance of surviving.

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Where not to visit if you love animals

Running of the Bulls

Every year, tourists travel to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls. The bulls who are forced to slip and slide down the town's narrow cobblestone streets are chased straight into the bullring. They are then taunted, stabbed repeatedly and finally killed by the matador in front of a jeering crowd. The majority of Spaniards reject bullfighting, but tourists are keeping the cruel industry on its last legs.

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Where not to visit if you love animals

Horse-drawn carriages

City streets are no place for horses. The animals toil in all weather extremes, suffering from respiratory distress from breathing in exhaust fumes as well as numerous hoof, leg and back problems from walking on pavement all day long. As easily spooked prey animals, horses subjected to the loud noises and unexpected sounds of city streets are likely to be involved in accidents, even deadly ones.

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Where not to visit if you love animals

Zoos

The zoo community regards the animals it keeps as commodities, and animals are regularly bought, sold, borrowed and traded without any regard for established relationships. Zoos breed animals because the presence of babies draws visitors and boosts revenue, yet often, there's nowhere to put the offspring as they grow, and they are killed, as we saw with Marius the giraffe in Denmark. Some zoos have introduced evening events with loud music and alcohol which disrupt the incarcerated animals even further.

EPA

The earliest variation of Rock, Paper, Scissors is thought to date from China's Han Dynasty (206BC-AD220).

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