Chimps Outsmart Humans in Strategy Games

Chimpanzees appear to be better at competitive strategizing than human beings, researchers report.

According to a study published in Scientific Reports, chimpanzees pay closer attention to opponent patterns and can adjust more efficiently. They also learn rapidly from their mistakes, outpacing humans in simple strategy games.

The consequence is that when chimpanzees play each other, they are both too smart for their own good. They approach a point of equality theorized by famous game-theorist and mathematician John Forbes Nash, who said neither opposing party can outpace the other, as both are constantly optimally adjusting to their opponent's strategies.

"Chimps are really good at adjusting and gaining a competitive edge if there is a little bit of a slip by their opponent, until generally they are both balanced," study author Colin Camerer said in an interview with USA TODAY Network.

Humans, Camerer adds, don't appear to be nearly as good at capitalizing on the mistakes of their opponents.

The researchers determined this after testing laboratory chimps in Kyoto, Joapan and Bossou, Guinea. The chimps were asked to play the "Inspection Game" in which two players face separate computer screens and choose between two blue squares. One player is rewarded for matching the choice of the other player, while the other is rewarded for mismatches.

Children, adults, and chimps were asked to compete against one another, but the chimps always proved the most successful at the game, reaching a Nash equilibrium of optimal strategy when playing one another faster than humans.

"It seems like they're keeping better track of their opponents' previous choices," Camerer told the Los Angeles Times. "You can see, compared to the human subjects, they're just more responsive. They're keeping better 'minds' on what their opponents are doing."

According to the researchers, this competitive edge may be the byproduct of evolution. While humans evolved to develop language, intense sense of being, and most importantly, cooperation, chimps stayed in the trees where they continued to thrive off being competitive deceivers and manipulators even within their own communities.

The study was published in Scientific Reports on June 5.

(Credit: Chris Martin/Primate Research Institute/Kyoto University)