How does the chimp test work?
Numbers from 1 upwards appear in random squares of a 6 × 6 grid. Look for as long as you like. When you tap 1, every other number turns into a blank square, and you have to tap them in order from memory. Clear a level and the next one has one more number. Tap the wrong square and it is a strike: the same number of squares is dealt again in new places. 3 strikes end the run. The first level has 4 numbers.
How is your result calculated?
Your result is the largest level you cleared: the most numbers you remembered in the right order. Nothing is timed, so there is no hurry to tap 1. Looking longer helps, which is part of what the test shows: how many positions you can hold once they are out of sight.
Why is it called the chimp test?
Because of a 2007 study by Sana Inoue and Tetsuro Matsuzawa at Kyoto University, published in Current Biology. Young chimpanzees who had learned the numerals 1 to 9 saw them flash on a touchscreen, turn into white squares, and then touched the squares in order. One of them, Ayumu, did it accurately even when the numbers were shown for a fraction of a second, faster than the university students tested the same way. Later studies found that people who practise the task as much as the chimpanzees had can match him, so the result says more about training than about chimps beating humans.
How to remember more squares
- Look at the shape, not the numbers. Trace the path from 1 to the last number with your eyes as if it were a drawing.
- Chunk it. Remember the path as two or three short pieces rather than one long one.
- Take your time before tapping 1. The clock never runs.
For memory of a sequence shown one step at a time, try the Sequence Memory Test; for a whole pattern at once, the Visual Memory Test.