Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2012 Oct 5;367(1603):2753-61. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2012.0191.
We are often asked whether some apes are smarter than others. Here we used two individual-based datasets on cognitive abilities to answer this question and to elucidate the structure of individual differences. We identified some individuals who consistently scored well across multiple tasks, and even one individual who could be classified as exceptional when compared with her conspecifics. However, we found no general intelligence factor. Instead, we detected some clusters of certain abilities, including inferences, learning and perhaps a tool-use and quantities cluster. Thus, apes in general and chimpanzees in particular present a pattern characterized by the existence of some smart animals but no evidence of a general intelligence factor. This conclusion contrasts with previous studies that have found evidence of a g factor in primates. However, those studies have used group-based as opposed to the individual-based data used here, which means that the two sets of analyses are not directly comparable. We advocate an approach based on testing multiple individuals (of multiple species) on multiple tasks that capture cognitive, motivational and temperament factors affecting performance. One of the advantages of this approach is that it may contribute to reconcile the general and domain-specific views on primate intelligence.
我们经常被问到，某些类人猿是否比其他类人猿更聪明。在这里，我们使用了两个基于个体的认知能力数据集来回答这个问题，并阐明了个体差异的结构。我们确定了一些在多项任务中始终表现出色的个体，甚至有一个个体与同物种的个体相比，可以被归类为异常。然而，我们没有发现一般智力因素。相反，我们检测到了一些特定能力的集群，包括推理、学习，甚至可能是工具使用和数量集群。因此，类人猿一般来说，特别是黑猩猩，表现出一种模式，其特点是存在一些聪明的动物，但没有证据表明存在一般智力因素。这一结论与之前在灵长类动物中发现 g 因素证据的研究形成对比。然而，这些研究使用的是基于群体的而不是我们这里使用的基于个体的数据集，这意味着这两种分析方法不能直接比较。我们提倡一种基于对多个个体（多个物种）在多个任务上进行测试的方法，这些任务可以捕捉影响表现的认知、动机和气质因素。这种方法的一个优点是，它可能有助于调和灵长类动物智力的一般和特定领域的观点。
