[minorwork]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314681,00.html
http://eggheadblog.ucdavis.edu/?p=806

Today the talk is of the chimps that are quicker than humans at the eidetic memory test. Exposed to numbers 1-9 for .21 seconds, the chimps could demonstrate the position of the numbers at 80% accuracy. Humans could not match chimp performance, scoring 20%. The test does have its problems. The chimps were the best of the best that had been trained to the task while the humans were the average untrained college student.


My thinking is that the chimps having less layers/filters to process information and so take a correspondingly lesser time to sort and classify memory. The humans with a 6 layer filter processor inherently takes longer to process and classify memory.

I can see an experiment in which after training humans in techniques that, if possible, would internally bypass several layers and thus duplicate the chimps performance. The techniques might be on the order of those learned in the Eastern mystery schools. Surat Shabd and the like who have demonstrated in MRI machines abilities to alter the internal structure of their brain. I really do need to get the links to the studies on the Dalai LLama for more info. But for humans to do comparable work as quick as the chimps, will require an exercise in self controlled change of the inherent way humans think, if only for a limited amount of time, that has yet to be demonstrated. I doubt this state of mind could be maintained for more than an hour. Realistically 5 minutes. And maybe just as a proof of concept.

If indeed it can be demonstrated that speed of memory processing is directly related to the number of cortex layers would this be news? Or haven't I read wide enough? It might be that fewer layers is a survival selection that has chosen the quicker reflexes in a dog eat dog environment in the wild.

The chimp test seems to show only the value of training.

[minorwork]

I can only think that the publicity will further monetary goals. Now take the humans and train them. Select the best, as was done for the chimps, and maybe then we could determine if there is some significance to differing numbers of cortex layers, at least in these eidetic memory tests.