Career
In 1967, Fouts' career took a decisive turn after it was almost derailed by a disastrous job interview with Dr. Allen Gardner in Reno, Nevada. However, Washoe, a chimpanzee, took an immediate liking to Roger, and leapt into his arms. A few days later he was told he had got the job. [5] In 1970 the project with Washoe and the Gardners relocated to the Institute of Primate Studies in Norman, Oklahoma.
The Gardners and Fouts taught the chimpanzees signs from American Sign Language (ASL) by modeling (demonstration and getting the chimps to imitate) and physical prompting (directly manipulating the chimpanzees' hands into the required shapes). As the studies progressed, they found that the animals used ASL to communicate with each other. The apes created phrases from combinations of signs to denote new things that were brought into their environment. Loulis, Washoe's adopted son, learned basic ASL and over 70 signs directly from Washoe, without human involvement. [1]
Fouts has been a consultant or adviser on four movies, including Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984). [6]
The chimpanzee, also simply known as the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forests and savannahs of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed one. When its close relative the bonobo was more commonly known as the pygmy chimpanzee, this species was often called the common chimpanzee or the robust chimpanzee. The chimpanzee and the bonobo are the only species in the genus Pan. Evidence from fossils and DNA sequencing shows that Pan is a sister taxon to the human lineage and is thus humans' closest living relative.
Neam "Nim" Chimpsky was a chimpanzee and the subject of a study of animal language acquisition -- specificallly, the abilities of chimpanzees to learn a human language. The project was led by Herbert S. Terrace of Columbia University with the linguistic analysis headed up by psycholinguist Thomas Bever. Within the context of a scientific study, Chimpsky was named as a pun on linguist Noam Chomsky, who posits that humans are "wired" to develop language.
Washoe was a female common chimpanzee who was the first non-human to learn to communicate using some American Sign Language (ASL) as part of an animal research experiment on animal language acquisition.
Franciscus Bernardus Maria de Waal was a Dutch-American primatologist and ethologist. He was the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Primate Behavior in the Department of Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory, and author of numerous books including Chimpanzee Politics (1982) and Our Inner Ape (2005). His research centered on primate social behavior, including conflict resolution, cooperation, inequity aversion, and food-sharing. He was a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Animal languages are forms of communication between animals that show similarities to human language. Animals communicate through a variety of signs, such as sounds and movements. Signing among animals may be considered a form of language if the inventory of signs is large enough. The signs are relatively arbitrary, and the animals seem to produce them with a degree of volition.
Research into nonhuman great ape language has, historically, involved teaching chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans to communicate with humans and each other using imitative human speech, sign language, physical tokens and computerized lexigrams. These practices have proven controversial, with debates hinging on what constitutes "language," the welfare of test subjects, and the anthropocentric nature of this line of inquiry.
Steven M. Wise was an American lawyer and legal scholar who specialized in animal rights, primatology, and animal intelligence. He taught animal rights law at Harvard Law School, Vermont Law School, John Marshall Law School, Lewis & Clark Law School, Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, and at the Master’s in Animal Law and Society of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He was a former president of the Animal Legal Defense Fund and founder and president of the Nonhuman Rights Project. The Yale Law Journal had called him "one of the pistons of the animal rights movement."
The Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute (CHCI) was located on the campus of Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington. CHCI included a sanctuary for chimpanzees who have learned to communicate with humans and each other using American Sign Language. CHCI's director was Mary Lee Jensvold. It was founded by former co-directors Roger Fouts and Deborah Fouts. The institute was closed in 2013 when the remaining chimpanzees were transferred to facilities in Quebec, Canada and the building the facility was housed in, was demolished in 2018. Portions of the specialized structures used to house the chimps were dismantled and moved to the Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest in Cle Elum, for future use.
The Mind of an Ape is a 1983 book by David Premack and his wife Ann James Premack. The authors argue that it is possible to teach language to (non-human) great apes. They write: "We now know that someone who comprehends speech must know language, even if he or she cannot produce it."
Loulis is a chimpanzee who has learned to communicate in American Sign Language.
Emily Sue Savage-Rumbaugh is a psychologist and primatologist most known for her work with two bonobos, Kanzi and Panbanisha, investigating their linguistic and cognitive abilities using lexigrams and computer-based keyboards. Originally based at Georgia State University's Language Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia, she worked at the Iowa Primate Learning Sanctuary in Des Moines, Iowa from 2006 until her departure in November 2013.
Lucy (1964–1987) was a chimpanzee owned by the Institute for Primate Studies in Oklahoma, and raised by Maurice K. Temerlin, a psychotherapist and professor at the University of Oklahoma and his wife, Jane.
Deborah Fouts was the co-director of the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute (CHCI). CHCI was the home of Washoe, the first non-human to acquire a human language, and three other chimpanzees who use the signs of American Sign Language to communicate with each other and their human caregivers. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology (Research) at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington. She is married to former co-director, now retired Roger Fouts.
Mary Lee Jensvold is a senior lecturer at Central Washington University. She was the Director of the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute (CHCI) located on the campus of Central Washington University. CHCI was the home of the chimpanzee Washoe and four other chimpanzees who use the signs of American Sign Language to communicate with one another and their human caregivers.
Experiments involving non-human primates (NHPs) include toxicity testing for medical and non-medical substances; studies of infectious disease, such as HIV and hepatitis; neurological studies; behavior and cognition; reproduction; genetics; and xenotransplantation. Around 65,000 NHPs are used every year in the United States, and around 7,000 across the European Union. Most are purpose-bred, while some are caught in the wild.
Comparative cognition is the comparative study of the mechanisms and origins of cognition in various species, and is sometimes seen as more general than, or similar to, comparative psychology. From a biological point of view, work is being done on the brains of fruit flies that should yield techniques precise enough to allow an understanding of the workings of the human brain on a scale appreciative of individual groups of neurons rather than the more regional scale previously used. Similarly, gene activity in the human brain is better understood through examination of the brains of mice by the Seattle-based Allen Institute for Brain Science, yielding the freely available Allen Brain Atlas. This type of study is related to comparative cognition, but better classified as one of comparative genomics. Increasing emphasis in psychology and ethology on the biological aspects of perception and behavior is bridging the gap between genomics and behavioral analysis.
Primate cognition is the study of the intellectual and behavioral skills of non-human primates, particularly in the fields of psychology, behavioral biology, primatology, and anthropology.
Panbanisha, also known by the lexigram , was a female bonobo that featured in studies on great ape language by Professor Sue Savage-Rumbaugh. Her name is Swahili for "to cleave together for the purpose of contrast."
Moja was a chimpanzee at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute. She was born at the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP). In infanthood Moja was treated in a similar way to a child, and immersed in an environment of American Sign Language.
Beatrix Tugendhut Gardner was an Austrian-American zoologist who became well known for the primate research that she conducted in the United States. She taught sign language to Washoe the chimpanzee, who was the first ape to learn American sign language.
