Last updated 28 August 2026
Where the name comes from
At Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute, researchers trained young chimpanzees on a task very like this one: numerals appear briefly on a screen, then turn into blank squares, and the animal must touch them in ascending order. The young chimps performed it faster and more accurately than the human students tested alongside them, which upended the comfortable assumption that working memory scales neatly with general intelligence. One reading is that the chimps use something closer to a snapshot — taking in the whole layout at once rather than reading it as a sequence, which is what literate humans tend to do by habit. Whether that is the full explanation is still argued over, but the result itself has held up.
Common questions
Why is it called the chimp test?
It is modelled on experiments at Kyoto University where young chimpanzees performed this task faster and more accurately than human participants — a result that made the task widely known outside psychology.
How far do most people get?
Most people manage somewhere between eight and twelve numbers. The chimps in the original study handled nine numerals reliably at display times far shorter than most humans can cope with.
Why do the numbers hide after the first click?
That is the design of the original task. Everything is visible while you orient yourself, and the moment you commit by clicking 1, the rest must come from memory rather than from reading.
Is my score saved?
Your best level is stored in your browser only. Nothing is uploaded and there is no account.