Chimpanzee Ai-project

November 30, 2017

AICHI PREF.- Chimpanzee Ai shows its skills during a cognitive test with numeric characters at the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, central Japan, Wednesday, 29 November 2017 (issued 30 November 2017). The institute, established in 1967 to serve as a center for primate research in Japan, is marking its 50th anniversary this year.

The research work 'Ai-project,' started in 1978 by Dr Tetsuro Matsuzawa, Primatologist and Distinguished Professor with the Kyoto University Institute for Advanced Study (KUIAS, Comparative Cognitive Science), aims at understanding chimpanzee cognition to know the evolutionary origins of the human mind.

The research program studies the cognitive skills, through computer interface experiments, of female chimpanzee Ai, since her birth in 1977, and later her son Ayumu, who was born in 2000, at the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University (KUPRI).

The research has demonstrated that chimps have remarkable levels of intelligence showing a superior short term memory than humans. Jiji Press