Animal intelligence and character psychology

Animal characters are often portrayed in cinema and fiction as having more human-like qualities than their real-life counterparts. Often they are portrayed according to previous depictions of animal types, such as those in Aesop's Fables (for example, a cunning fox). Sometimes they are exaggerated versions of one or a few key features attributed to types of animals (whether accurately attributed or a continuation of a stereotype), such as the short-term memory of the fish Dory in Finding Nemo.

The following video round-up for New Scientist article Animals With Human Abilities details 6 areas of human ability observed in other animals and provides video coverage for each. These areas are teaching, learning, cooperation, deception, memory, and social learning.

So whether you want to develop more interesting animal characters for cinema or fiction or you just want to see a chimp outperform humans on touchscreen memory tests (below) - although the chimp has had more practice at that type of testing - you may find the videos in the above link interesting viewing.