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In some simple competitive scenarios, chimpanzees can outperform humans, according to a new study. 

In an experiment, scientists held an "inspection game" that quantified chimps' and humans' strategic choices. 

The game has two players, the Mismatcher and the Matcher. Each player, human or chimp, sits facing away from other, looking at a computer screen that displays two blue boxes. The Matcher's goal is to select the same box as his/her opponent, while Mismatcher's goal is to select a different box. The way to win the match is to detect patterns in the opponents' moves. 

Apparently, as the game progressed, chimps performed better than humans and after 200 games, they averaged close to the optimal play. 

"Competition is central in chimpanzee life," said  Caltech graduate student and study coauthor Rahul Bhui, in the press release. 

"The nice thing about the game theory used in this study is that it allows you to boil down all of these situations to their strategic essence."

The researchers hypothesize that this instinctual focus on competition partially explains the chimps' superior performance, while human society is more cooperative, wrote CS Monitor. 

This game, Bhui said, was designed on the "pure essence of competition." Humans "shift at a young age from competition to cooperation using our special skill at language," said study coauthor and Caltech economist Colin Camerer in a press release. 

The findings have been published online in Scientific Reports.