There are only two types of animals capable of cooperating to transport large objects: humans and ants. Among the 15,000 species of ants, only 1% have the intelligence to work collectively and achieve this feat.
A group of entomologists used an experiment from computer science and artificial intelligence to compare the cognitive abilities of insects and humans, both individually and in teams. Under equal conditions, ants surpass us in collective intelligence.
The longhorn crazy ant (Paratrechina longicornis) belongs to that 1% that join forces and brains to solve complex puzzles. These ants move in all directions when they find something valuable, demonstrating collective intelligence.
Ofer Feinerman’s laboratory at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel has studied these ants for years. In their latest experiment, they designed a challenge where the ants had to remove a T-shaped piece of wood from a room through narrow doors. They then replicated the experiment on a human scale, with Ts of different sizes and several rooms.
## Results of the experiment and the collective intelligence of ants
The results, published in the journal PNAS, reveal how collective intelligence emerges in ants and how humans face difficulties when working in large groups.
As more individuals are added, both insects and humans can lift more weight. However, the sum of individual intelligences does not equal collective intelligence. Ants attempting to move small Ts failed more frequently individually, while they performed better in large groups, thanks to a kind of emergent memory.
Feinerman explains that a single ant doesn’t remember the direction of its movement for long and constantly changes direction, especially if it hits a wall. In contrast, a group of ants can remember the direction and persist, even if the load hits a wall.
This emergent memory ability may have an evolutionary basis, as crazy ants tend to give up at the slightest conflict and can only obtain food by cooperating quickly.
## Comparison of cognitive abilities between ants and humans
Individually, humans always outperformed ants. Grouped, in small or large groups, humans were also more efficient at handling the Ts. However, in a variation of the experiment, ants outperformed humans when they couldn’t communicate verbally or with gestures.
Researchers used masks and dark sunglasses to equalize communication capacity between species. The results showed that, in most attempts, ants were more efficient.
Feinerman points out that people in a non-communicative group start behaving more like ants, and their performance decreases. This experiment has helped to better understand the cognitive abilities of crazy ants as a group, as well as those of humans.
The authors conclude that simple minds can easily take advantage of scalability, while more complex brains need extensive communication to cooperate efficiently.
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