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."[1]
The subjects of the program, nine chimpanzees, were reared in a laboratory environment specifically designed to stimulate their intellect, as animals raised otherwise fail to thrive. This was in contrast to the traditional psychology lab where the animals are caged and remain in solitude. Sarah, born in 1959, demonstrated use of an invented language. Gussie failed to learn any words. Elizabeth and Peony were trained in the language. Walnut, a late arrival, also was trained in the language, but failed to learn any words. Jessie, Sadie, Bert, and Luvie, 1975 controls, were not trained in the language, but demonstrated pointing.
The language designed by Premack for an ape was not verbal; Premack's chimpanzee program differed from that of a separate research program in which other chimpanzees were raised in a human family in parallel with human babies, and taught words.[2] Eventually, the chimpanzees might get to a two-year-old human's list of words, but no further. Vicki was eventually trained to speak four words.[2] The experiments with those chimpanzees did not demonstrate the existence of the faculties shown by Sarah discussed below, in her command of a language, for example. In other experiments, other chimpanzees have been taught American Sign Language (ASL), notably Washoe.[3][4] Washoe could use 68 gestures after three years of training, eventually getting to 150 gestures. However, Nim,[5] trained in ASL, was found to demonstrate no forms with grammar, his linguistic productions being sets of gestures in no particular order. Koko[6] and Chantek[7] were also trained in ASL. See also Kanzi's 400-word vocabulary of spontaneous productions as of 2005.
The language tokens
The language consisted of a series of colored plastic tokens, which the chimpanzees could manipulate and stick to a magnetic board. Each token stood for a word which was never spoken in the chimpanzee's presence. Sarah began her language training in 1967 at age five, beginning with food exchanges, to establish a social exchange with the instructor. The Premacks note that the chimpanzees gave food reluctantly and unwillingly, far preferring to receive food. In a series of experiments, Premack was able to train Sarah, Elizabeth, and Peony to parse sentences:
Peony nose touch
which might result in Peony touching the trainer's nose. The tokens did not resemble the objects; an apple was symbolized by a blue triangle token. The chimpanzee Elizabeth would be symbolized by a decorated E token, a copy of which would dangle from a necklace around her neck. The trainer would also wear a corresponding token, as would other investigators whom the chimpanzee would have to name in the formation of the target sentence. It took Sarah, Elizabeth, and Peony each hundreds of trials to first form an association between the tokens and the objects. Sarah in particular was trained in the token manipulations for 18 months. Sarah was able to learn imperative sentences with a grammar,
Sarah jam bread take
in which the trainer allowed her to take the bread and jam, and also negative sentences
No Sarah honey cracker take
in which the trainer restrained her from taking the cracker and honey, which taught Sarah to suppress her impulse to take the negated object. In particular, the noun had to be at the beginning and the verb had to be at the end of the production, or else the trainer would not respond to Sarah's ungrammatical sentence. After hundreds of trials, Sarah could reliably produce the grammatical form
Colors (tokens were not colored with the corresponding colors)
red
yellow
brown
green
Questions
Sarah was also able to answer questions in the form of a question token "?" which she could answer by selecting a resolving token. However, Sarah was never able to ask questions by manipulating the "?" token. The question "What is the color of apple?"
"?" color of apple (blue triangle)
would be answered with the token for 'red' (a gray curved token).
New symbols
Premack was able to demonstrate that Sarah could understand how to decode a symbol stream after training. First, she had to learn the token name-of and then learn that some new, but real objects had the name-of fig token1 and crackerjack token2.
She learned
Real fig name-of fig token1
and
Real crackerjack name-of crackerjack token2.
She was tested with
fig token1 "?" Real crackerjack
which she answered correctly with
fig token1 Not name-of Real crackerjack
Finally, with the trainer placing a ripe fig on the table, and the tokens fig token1, crackerjack token2, give, Mary, Sarah, orange, banana, Sarah produced the new sentence
Mary give fig token1 Sarah
and with the trainer placing a crackerjack on the table, Sarah produced the new sentence
Mary give crackerjack token2 Sarah
Other concepts
Sarah, Peony, and Elizabeth were able to respond to and formulate analogies and to express judgements. In these trials, problems were formulated by videotaped situations involving an actor, both friendly and unfriendly. With no training, and with observation of the laboratory only, Sarah was able to select answers requiring judgement, based on her experiences in the laboratory, such as the fact that a light cord had to be plugged in to solve some problems. Sarah was able to select proposed solutions for resolving the situations.
Sarah was most accurate on judgements of sameness, less so on similarity, and least accurate on judgements of difference. Human children were then tested with the same protocols, using speech. Young children passed the tests on number, but failed on tests measuring conservation of liquid and solid. Five- to six-year-old children passed the tests on conservation of liquid and solid, suggesting a similar process for the cognition of measurement of conservation of liquid and solid, between ape and human.
The conditional statement
Sarah was able to parse the following sentence in a way to give her the most reward:
(both an apple and a banana portion are presented for Sarah to take as part of the statement)
In this sentence, if Sarah were to take the apple, then Mary, the trainer, would give her the chocolate, but if Sarah were to take the banana, then Mary would not give her the chocolate.
Pointing
The chimpanzees do not spontaneously point outside of the psychological laboratory. The control chimpanzees, which were not trained in the language, could all point to communicate with the trainers.
Mappings and other representations
The chimpanzees of Premack's laboratory were not able to navigate given training on a map, unless the map was an exact-scale replica of the mission situation.
Spontaneous productions
Not all individuals in a given species have equivalent capabilities to produce spontaneous communications. Washoe,[3][4] spontaneously signed, in contrast to Nim.[5] However, Kanzi,[8] at age 30 months demonstrated spontaneous production of gestures and keyboard presses to ask for desired objects or events, and to name items in response to queries from the trainer. Kanzi had not been trained in producing communications. Apparently, he learned this while playing in the training room while his adoptive mother Matata was being trained to use gestures and keyboard presses ("Lexigrams").[9] The spontaneous productions by Kanzi occurred in the absence of Matata. Kanzi could produce 400 words and recognize 500.
Natural gestures
The Premacks note that chimpanzees use some gestures with each other, which the trainers use to communicate with both the language-trained chimpanzees and the control chimpanzees.
Requests for food
hand cupped, palm upward, for a chimpanzee to place food in
extruding lips in supplication
Appeasement
One chimpanzee, trembling, hugged Premack at the beginning of his career, as if to appease him at the time of displaying outrage
Grooming
Eating
Greeting
Other personal traits
The Premacks stated that the chimpanzees had specific traits, such as favorite trainers, and that some chimpanzees, such as Gussie, seemed more fearful than the others. As previously noted, the Premacks noticed that Jessie seemed to be the brightest of the nine chimpanzee subjects. For example, she did not hesitate to unmask a masked researcher, which none of the other chimpanzees attempted. It is clear that the Premacks attempted to provide a humane, supportive environment for the chimpanzees.[10]
Vauclair notes that chimpanzees become distressed in the absence of their favorite companion.[11]
Alex (parrot), so far the only non-human animal ever to ask an existential question.
Related Research Articles
Neam "Nim" Chimpsky was a chimpanzee and the subject of an extended study of animal language acquisition at Columbia University. The project was led by Herbert S. Terrace 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 American Sign Language (ASL) as part of an animal research experiment on animal language acquisition.
Yerkish is an artificial language developed for use by non-human primates. It employs a keyboard whose keys contain lexigrams, symbols corresponding to objects or ideas.
Animal languages are forms of non-human animal communication 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. In experimental tests, animal communication may also be evidenced through the use of lexigrams by chimpanzees and bonobos.
Kanzi, also known by the lexigram , is a male bonobo who has been the subject of several studies on great ape language. According to Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, a primatologist who has studied the bonobo throughout her life, Kanzi has exhibited advanced linguistic aptitude.
The origin of language, its relationship with human evolution, and its consequences have been subjects of study for centuries. Scholars wishing to study the origins of language must draw inferences from evidence such as the fossil record, archaeological evidence, contemporary language diversity, studies of language acquisition, and comparisons between human language and systems of animal communication. Many argue that the origins of language probably relate closely to the origins of modern human behavior, but there is little agreement about the facts and implications of this connection.
Research into great ape language has involved teaching chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans to communicate with humans and each other using sign language, physical tokens, lexigrams, and imitative human speech. Some primatologists argue that the use of these communication methods indicate primate "language" ability, though this depends on one's definition of language. The cognitive tradeoff hypothesis suggests that human language skills evolved at the expense of the short-term and working memory capabilities potentially observed in other hominids.
Lana was a female chimpanzee, the first to use lexigrams in language research. She was born at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center of Emory University, and the project she was allocated to when 1 year old, the LANguage Analogue project led by Duane Rumbaugh, was named after her with the acronym LANA because the project team felt that her identity was well worth preserving.
Sarah was an enculturated research chimpanzee whose cognitive skills were documented in the 1983 book The Mind of an Ape, by David Premack and Ann James Premack. Sarah was one of nine chimpanzees in David Premack's psychology laboratory in Pennsylvania. Sarah was born in Africa in 1959. She first worked in Missouri, then in Santa Barbara, and then Pennsylvania. She first was exposed to language token training in 1967.
David Premack was an American psychologist who was a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. He was educated at the University of Minnesota when logical positivism was in full bloom. The departments of Psychology and Philosophy were closely allied. Herbert Feigl, Wilfred Sellars, and Paul Meehl led the philosophy seminars, while Group Dynamics was led by Leon Festinger and Stanley Schachter.
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. She currently sits on the Board of Directors of Bonobo Hope.
Ai is a female western chimpanzee, currently living at the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University. She is the first subject of the Ai project, a research program started in 1978 by Kiyoko Murofushi and Tetsuro Matsuzawa which is aimed at understanding chimpanzee cognition through computer interface experiments.
Roger S. Fouts is a retired American primate researcher. He was co-founder and co-director of the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute (CHCI) in Washington, and a professor of psychology at the Central Washington University. He is best known for his role in teaching Washoe the chimpanzee to communicate using a set of signs taken from American sign language.
William M. Fields, also known by the lexigram , is an American qualitative investigator studying language, culture, and tools in non-human primates. He is best known for his collaboration with Sue Savage-Rumbaugh beginning in 1997 at the Language Research Center of Georgia State University. There he co-reared Nyota , a baby bonobo, with Panbanisha , Kanzi and Savage-Rumbaugh . Fields and Savage-Rumbaugh are the only scientists in the world carrying out language research with bonobos.
A talking animal or speaking animal is any non-human animal that can produce sounds or gestures resembling those of a human language. Several species or groups of animals have developed forms of communication which superficially resemble verbal language, however, these usually are not considered a language because they lack one or more of the defining characteristics, e.g. grammar, syntax, recursion, and displacement. Researchers have been successful in teaching some animals to make gestures similar to sign language, although whether this should be considered a language has been disputed.
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."
Theory of mind in animals is an extension to non-human animals of the philosophical and psychological concept of theory of mind (ToM), sometimes known as mentalisation or mind-reading. It involves an inquiry into whether non-human animals have the ability to attribute mental states to themselves and others, including recognition that others have mental states that are different from their own. To investigate this issue experimentally, researchers place non-human animals in situations where their resulting behavior can be interpreted as supporting ToM or not.
Pointing is a gesture specifying a direction from a person's body, usually indicating a location, person, event, thing or idea. It typically is formed by extending the arm, hand, and index finger, although it may be functionally similar to other hand gestures. Types of pointing may be subdivided according to the intention of the person, as well as by the linguistic function it serves.
Panpanzee the chimpanzee, was born at the Language Research Center at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. She lived the rest of her life at the Great Ape Trust in Iowa. Her half-brother is Kanzi, a famous bonobo. Kanzi learned 348 lexigram symbols and over 3,000 words from the English language over her lifespan.
References
↑ Premack, David & Premack, Ann James. The Mind of an Ape, p. 13. ISBN0-393-01581-5.
Kellogg, W.N.; Kellogg, L.A. (1933), The Ape and the Child: a study of Environmental Influence Upon Early Behavior, New York: McGraw-Hill
Hayes, Catherine (1951), The Ape in Our House, New York: Harper
Hayes, K.L.; Nissen, C.H. (1971), "Higher Mental Functions of a Home-Raised Chimpanzee", in Schrier, A.M.; Stollnitz, F. (eds.), Behavior of Non-Human Primates, New York: Academic Press, pp.60–114
The Premacks list their selections for what they then considered to be the best references in ethology for the chimpanzee in the wild:
Gardner, R.A.; Gardner, B.T.; Van Cantfort, T.E. (1989), Teaching Sign Language to Chimpanzees, Albany: SUNY Press
Patterson, F.G.; Linden, E. (1981), The Education of Koko, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston
Miles, H.L. (1990), "The cognitive foundations for reference in a signing orangutan", in Parker, S.T.; Gibson, K.R. (eds.), "Language" and intelligence in monkeys and apes: Comparative Developmental Perspectives, Cambridge Univ. Press, pp.511–539
Savage-Rumbaugh, E.S.; Rumbaugh, D.M.; McDonald, K. (1985), "Language learning in two species of apes", Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 9 (4): 653–665, doi:10.1016/0149-7634(85)90012-0, PMID4080283
Savage-Rumbaugh, E.S.; McDonald, K.; Sevcik, R.A.; Hopkins, W.D.; Hopkins, E. Rupert (1986), "Spontaneous symbol acquisition and communicative use by pygmy chimpanzees (Pan paniscus)", Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 115 (3): 211–235, CiteSeerX10.1.1.140.2493, doi:10.1037/0096-3445.115.3.211, PMID2428917
Schusterman, R.J.; Gisiner, R., "Artificial language comprehension in dolphins and sea lions: The Essential Cognitive Skills", The Psychological Record, vol.38, pp.311–348
Terrace, H.S. (1979), Nim: A Chimpanzee Who Learned Sign Language, New York: Knopf.
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