Chimpanzees can perform better than humans in the game of strategic thinking, a recent study of by researchers at the Kyoto University Primate Research Institute of Japan claims.

The researchers conducted a game called "inspection game" to compare humans and chimpanzees and evaluate their strategic thinking. In the game, sixteen human volunteers and six chimpanzees participated.

Chimpanzees would go up against Chimpanzees, and humans against human. At a time, the game required two players to do 'Mismatcher' and 'Matcher".

Sitting in front of a computer screen facing away from his opponent and showing two blue boxes, each player needed to choose the same box as his or her opponent in 'Matcher' and a different box in 'Mismatcher'.

All players were also assigned with a task to try to guess the moves of their opponents and make a selection suitably. Chimpanzees performed better than humans.

Study leader Colin Camerer said, "While young chimpanzees hone their competitive skills with constant practice, playing hide-and-seek and wrestling, their human counterparts shift at a young age from competition to cooperation using our special skill at language."

Camerer added that chimpanzees are generally more competitive than humans and more capable of maintaining a continually shifting social 'status & dominance' hierarchy.

The study published online in the June 5 edition of Scientific Reports.