New York, April 14 (IANS): Chimpanzees are as smart as human children in anticipating trouble and planning for the future, says new research.

The study assessed the planning abilities of chimpanzees, two monkey species (rhesus macaques and capuchin monkeys) and human children between ages 28 and 66 months.

The researchers used a computerised game-like programme that presented 100 unique mazes to the participants and required them to move a cursor through a maze to reach a goal at the bottom of the screen.

"The chimpanzees proved to be quite good at the task, although monkeys showed more trouble with the harder mazes that required greater inhibition and more anticipation of future 'trouble spots' in the mazes," said Michael Beran from Georgia State University.

"These data highlight the capacity of chimpanzees -- and to a more limited degree, monkeys -- to anticipate and plan future moves in these game-like tasks, a prerequisite for more complicated types of future-oriented cognition," Beran noted.

The study found variability in the performance within each species and across ages in children, suggesting that a number of other cognitive processes may influence planning. The performance differences could be attributed to differences in focused attention, overall brain size and social systems, the study said.

Children were good at negotiating their way through the maze, although older children performed better than younger children.

Chimpanzees were better at the computerised maze task than both species of monkeys, said the study published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology.