THE ODYESSY OF APE LANGUAGE A SEARCH for Human Uniqueness NICHD - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
THE ODYESSY OF APE LANGUAGE A SEARCH for Human Uniqueness NICHD Templeton Foundation Ted Townsend Brief Chronology of Ape Language -- See Hillex and Rumbaugh (2004) for chronology from 1000BC to 2004 Ape and Child, Kellogg and Kellogg, The
The First Signs of Washoe, Gardner and Gardner, 1969 Ape and Child, Kellogg and Kellogg, 1933 Brief Chronology of Ape Language -- See Hillex and Rumbaugh (2004) for chronology from 1000BC to 2004 A Chimpanzee Learns Language, Premack, 1970 Reading and Sentence Completion, Rumbaugh, 1972
Life with Lucy, Fouts, 1972 Nim Chimpsky Changed My Mind, Terrace, 1979 I WAS FOOLED, WE WERE ALL FOOLED! Terrace, 1979 Conditioned Discrimination Imitation accounts for Nim and Washoe Chaining
All of these learning processes exist in human language and all of them play a role in language acquisition in children.(Greenfield, 1976). The question was NOT whether these processes occurred in apes, but whether their language could be reduced to these processes alone. Was it stimulus-bound rather than self- guided and reflective?. Can’t imitate Can’t point Can’t teach Can’t vocalize voluntarily Can’t acquire recursion Left the response to Fouts
Reversed Position
It’s a social thing It’s a cognitive thing. Terrace ignores the data Can’t do RMTS
conditioned discriminations -- rather both were intermingled
discriminations linked to real world events and internal desires
different foods and drinks)
'room' = one room, Lana's room).
different colors)
225 450 675 900 Total Stock Emerged Correct Syntax-E Word-E
“Sweet Potato name this that’s in cup.” “Juice name this that’s purple in box.” “You put M&M in box.” “Lana want banana that’s in room.” “Lana want eat sweet potato that’s
Examples Created by Lana But these were, in fact, display based sequences, not a board with stationary
discriminate existed. Consequently nothing could be constructed from these chains. By age 4, Lana was employing 69 different sentence frames which had emerged from her stock sentences - each of which contained as many 135 different alternatives for the ‘blank’ spaces.
No Real World Linkages Only Real World Linkages
See X -> select
1,2,3 etc. See Anything
Say Anything Order is NOT in the display, it is in the GRAMMAR
4 different psychologists (Gardner, Premack, Rumbaugh and Terrace) steeped in learning theory tried 4 different methods and got 4 different results, just as the theory would have predicted. A call went forth to stop all funding in the field, because it was being done by scholars who were either intentionally fraudulent or just plain incompetent.
The Gardner’s did not attend and they lost their funding. Rumbaugh attended but Tim left the field and Lana was retired from language and moved to counting. Signing efforts continued with Washoe, Moja, Pili, Dar, Koko and Chantek, but reports were few and data was generally ignored as they made no effort to address the ‘learning issues’ or the ‘cueing issues.’
Terrace
Lana remains alive and recalls her lexigrams when tested. If funding could be attained to give her a keyboard, she could again produce novel, syntactically appropriate recursive sentences, without imitating and without being cued.
lexigrams available 16 foods available (6 to 10 in a bout)
It ought to provide for natural communication as well
THEY WERE CLEARLY CONSCIOUS THAT THEY WERE COMMUNICATING
11 different foods were tested by directionally, both were correct on 90% of the trial #1 presentations
Did they Know That Symbols Communicate and/or That They Need to
Communicate? Savage-Rumbaugh (1986) It ought to work without the keyboard. It ought to work with novel symbols.
???
Jack - look at three letter keys, select color key Jill - look at 3 colors, select letter key for each color
Information was transmitted though Jill to Jack. The Intention to do so and/or the self knowledge that they had done so were considered to be irrelevant, because they were animals.
Chimps Pigeons
None reported Science Magazine refused to review any more papers. “You can’t even imagine what people say.”
Sherman is alive and well and recalls his lexigrams. He could be forming novel sentences, even without stock sentence training, if funding were available and if he had a keyboard.
Many researchers have feared creating these bonds, considering the best interests of the ape. However, in our world, a baby bonding with a human in captivity does not preclude an ape’s ability to recognize another bonobo, nor does it interfere with maternal or reproductive behaviors. However, in palpable ways, there are enormous differences between humanly enculturated apes and those that are not. We all live together in a peaceful, happy harmony; however, we perpetually negotiate sameness and otherness. The following paragraphs are ethnographic narratives which offer insight to the various world views and languages created among our colony and how we manage to live together. Ethnographic observations from Kanzi’s “home” We communicate with all the apes in our colony, but how we communicate with apes with receptive competence for English is quite different and far more efficient than how we communicate with the control group. A very simple example is this: If something unusual is going to happen in the lab, it can be stressful to the apes, such as a big husky repairman is going to fix our clogged potty. The apes will respond to a visitor as though it is a significant threat and danger. So we prepare them for every event we can. With Kanzi and his group, we can explain, “The plumber is coming and he is going to fix
able to plan three to six hours in advance with Kanzi. When the plumber arrives, Kanzi observes but he understands why the plumber is there and tolerates his presence. All the while, Matata’s non-English group is sending off alarm calls that something bad has come too close. If we had not spoken to Kanzi earlier, gotten his permission that the workman may come, Kanzi and Matata would be vocalizing together: a sonic event that is hard to describe and impossible to forget. Bonobo vocalizations are so loud in indoor spaces that humans’ chest cavities are impacted by the blasts of sound. One cannot think clearly, other than to decide to flee the noise. However, when one has coordinated with Kanzi using English, you can ask him to tell Matata that a good visitor is coming and not to be afraid. Having Kanzi communicate with Matata does help, depending on when you do it. Usually you have to wait until the visitor is present, because Matata, even when Kanzi communicates to her in a bonobo way, does not seem to have the ability to understand about things not present. So, Kanzi and I usually plan to wait until the visitor arrives and I will remind him to tell Matata everything is OK once she starts vocalizing danger. Usually, we have to promise her strawberries to be quiet. However, I cannot directly communicate that to Matata at this level. I must send a message to her through Kanzi, Panbanisha, or Nyota. And often, we have to remind her during the visit, as the idea is not sustained for very
understand English.