Anyone who’s ever seen the iconic shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller Psycho knows that every time they see the events of the movie unfold, things aren’t going to end well for Janet Leigh. And as it turns out, humans aren’t the only ones able to remember such thrilling scenes.
In new research published today in the journal Current Biology, Fumihiro Kano of Kyoto University revealed that great apes also have the capacity to recall shocking events that they’ve seen on the silver screen. Furthermore, the study found that the creatures can anticipate when such events are about to happen, even if they’ve only seen them once before.
On a side note, here’s our favorite chimp, Koko, watching a sad movie:
“When you watch a shocking, emotional event in a movie, you remember the event well, and later on, when you watch the same movie, you anticipate the event,” Kano said in a statement. “Thanks to a recent advance of state-of-the-art eye-tracking technologies, we could examine event anticipation by great apes while watching a movie by means of ‘anticipatory looks’ to the impending events.”
Previous research also already demonstrated that apes possess exceptional long-term memory skills when it comes to food-hiding tests, in which they see a tasty treat being hidden and later retrieve the desired snack.
Chimps and bonobos are film connoisseurs
In order to test the apes’ ability to remember events by watching them in other contexts, Kano’s team stepped into the role of actor and director. They made a pair of short films which they then showed to six chimpanzees and six bonobos while tracking the animals’ eye movements.
In one of the films, an aggressive individual wearing an ape suit emerged from one of two doors that were identical in appearance. In the other, a human actor picked up one of two objects, then used it to attack the ape-like character. By tracking the eye movement, the authors found that the apes anticipated what they were about to see even after they had only seen each movie once.
Upon watching the first movie for the second time, the apes focused their attention on the door through which they knew the person dressed like an ape would emerge. Similarly, upon seeing the second film again, they looked at the object they know was about to be used as a weapon to attack the ape-creature, even if it was place in a different location than it had been before.
According to Kano’s team, the findings indicate that great apes were able to encode what they observed in each film into their long-term memories, and were also able to use that information later on to anticipate events that were about to happen. In addition, the researchers said that the apes also appeared to enjoy the movies, forgoing a juice drink while watching the videos.
No word, however, as to whether or not chimps and bonobos like butter on their popcorn.
—–
Feature Image: Fumihiro Kano et al/Current Biology
Comments