<p>Researchers at the Charite University of Medicine in Germany have carried out the study and found that chimps link sounds and levels of brightness something akin to synaesthesia in people.<br /><br />Such an association could help explain how our early ancestors took the first vital step from ape-like grunts to a proper vocabulary, the ‘New Scientist’ reported.<br /><br />Synaesthetes make unusual connections between different senses, they might sense cert -ain tastes when they hear mus- ic, or “see” numbers as colours.<br /><br />The researchers, led by Vera Ludwig, have shown for the first time that chimpanzees also make cross-sensory associations.<br /><br />The team repeatedly flashed black or white squares for 200 milliseconds at a time on screens in front of six chimpanzees and 33 humans. <br /><br />They had to indicate whether the square was black or white by touching a button of the right colour. <br /><br />A high or low sound was randomly played in the background during the test.<br />Chimps and humans were better at identifying white squares when they heard a high-pitched sound, and more likely to correctly identify dark squares when played a low-pitched sound.<br /><br />But performance was poor for humans and lower for chimps’ when the sounds and colours were swapped. <br /></p>
<p>Researchers at the Charite University of Medicine in Germany have carried out the study and found that chimps link sounds and levels of brightness something akin to synaesthesia in people.<br /><br />Such an association could help explain how our early ancestors took the first vital step from ape-like grunts to a proper vocabulary, the ‘New Scientist’ reported.<br /><br />Synaesthetes make unusual connections between different senses, they might sense cert -ain tastes when they hear mus- ic, or “see” numbers as colours.<br /><br />The researchers, led by Vera Ludwig, have shown for the first time that chimpanzees also make cross-sensory associations.<br /><br />The team repeatedly flashed black or white squares for 200 milliseconds at a time on screens in front of six chimpanzees and 33 humans. <br /><br />They had to indicate whether the square was black or white by touching a button of the right colour. <br /><br />A high or low sound was randomly played in the background during the test.<br />Chimps and humans were better at identifying white squares when they heard a high-pitched sound, and more likely to correctly identify dark squares when played a low-pitched sound.<br /><br />But performance was poor for humans and lower for chimps’ when the sounds and colours were swapped. <br /></p>