Primates playing videogames

Rob Bass brought to my attention that a couple years ago, a video showed what I would guess is an exceptional bonobo, Kanzi, playing Pacman. As a fan of the game, I watched and was impressed at Kanzi's ability to manipulate the joystick and coordinate that to the visual display in a purposeful way. But the video never showed Kanzi playing independently. His tactics and the incessant positive, encouraging, and coaching speech by the human trainer suggested a cognitive ability of a preschooler. He left the game in the middle, his trainer kept reminding him when he could chase the ghosts and when he had to run, and he oftentimes became trapped in situations that experienced human players do not.

Related, a few zoo orangutans play matching games for food pellet.

Chimpanzees outperform adult humans in flash and remember experiment, similar to the one in Brain Age, in which they were rewarded peanuts. Might the humans have done well with an edible treat?

In some temple rooms of Legend of Zelda: The Wind Wakers, I felt like a chimpanzee in a psychologist's laboratory experiment. I imagine the banana at the door as a I go through the virtual environment, inferring the spatial results of various jumps or lever presses.

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