So I was watching Curious George the other day and thought it was likely that monkey had the developmental IQ of an ~8 year old. Weird. Then, tonight I’m watching The Walking Dead. Seriously, from a scientific perspective, what do you all reckon is the IQ of the typical post apocalypse Zombie?
It would be interesting to have one sit down and take an IQ test.
You’d probably have to calm it with a cup of brains first.
…Or would that be cheating?
I think they just plod around and eat, with the intelligence of a snail.
The IQ would have to pretty low. Don’t most mammalian predators have at least a small capacity to plan ahead? I don’t know if the zombies do anything like that. They just react if they see a possible food source or hear a loud noise (like gunfire).
It’s pretty low, but once they discover where Einstein’s brain is, all bets are off.
Walking Dead zombies don’t seem to have much of an IQ, maybe a few scattered memories (the guy’s wife in the first episode trying to get back into the house where her husband and kid were), but beyond that not much.
Romero zombies seem capable of learning at least. Bub in Day of the Dead as an example.
And of course Return of the Living Dead zombies retain whatever IQ they had as a human, just filtered through the pain and hunger for braiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiins
Bub had months of conditioning by a highly trained (if insane) behavioral scientist (& he’s Logan’s only success among many failures); he’s fare from a typical zombie (let’s not get into Big Daddy & his army). RotLD zombies are a completely different species, and are far, far more dangerous. Not only do they have more or less normal cognitave skills and the ability to use strategy (like impersontating the living & calling for backup) headshots don’t kill them & severed limbs are still animate. The 3rd movie came out and stated that their intelligence has alot to do with how fresh they are. Julie was able to actively defend her lover, and was the only zombie who actually cared enough to try and resist the tempation to eat people (she still failed).
In the original Night of the Living Dead there are tool using zombies. In the beginning of the movie the zombie attacking Barbara picks up a rock to smash the window of the car she’s in. The little girl zombie uses a hand spade to kill her mother.
Now that you mention them, I’m remembering these scenes. Those examples definitely make Romero’s creations smarter than the “Walking Dead” zombies.
Didn’t Dawn of the Dead have a zombie to be a mannequin to surprise Roger or Peter? If it was doing that on purpose (as opposed to simply not noticing him until he was close enought to grab) that demonstrates at least animal-level intelligence.
I don’t think it had chosen to stand there as deliberate camouflage, as that would take a fairly advanced amount of pattern recognition and forethought. Although I wonder now if the zombie habit of lying still until someone walks by might be an example of ambush strategy, and not just a somnolent zombie suddenly “waking up” when it hears someone near by.
I also the fact that the zombies were gathering at the mall also speaks a certain amount of intellect at work. When they’re not actively hunting things, they have a small but definate sense of motivation and initiative. If they were totally mindless, they’d just stand around in one place or wander aimlessly until they found more prey.
Yep. There’s also a big deal made about them learning in Land of the Dead, but I try not to think about Land of the Dead too much. Fireworks? Really? REALLY?
They feed constantly on flesh, and where there’ none around, they hang on with other zombies.
They move to an internal beat.
They are attracted to loud noises.
They have no disregard for anything besides themselves.
They can’t be reasoned with.
What the IQ of your typical teenager?
Hmmm… You may be on to something, there. Ha!
Well, if Warm Bodies is any guide, zombies think they can shamble-walk from Mirabel to Montreal which, if not dumb, is at the very least highly ambitious.
Cute!
As written, though, the distance from A to C can be anything in the range of 3.33 to 10.
I’m only a few episodes into season one of “The Walking Dead” but I could have sworn that in one scene a walker picked up a rock and started hitting a window or glass door. Other than that they don’t seem to have the intelligence to climb fences or do anything that requires finger dexterity.
And TBG, I took it that the guys wife in ep 1 was only drawn to the house the same way others were. I assumed that since she died in the house that her husband had meant to take care of her remains outside but she zombied on him in a scene we didn’t see. This wasn’t stated but I made some assumptions that
- Wife died in the house
- Husband knows she’s a zombie
- Zombie wife is somewhere out there close by wandering around.
So I didn’t come away with any idea that the walkers had memories. Maybe I’ll see that in later episodes.
In the early eps of TWD there were a couple with tools ( a crowbar or something) I thought, but definitely a couple climbing fences. They seem to have put a stop to that pretty quick though.