Herbert S. Terrace

Last updated
Herbert S. Terrace Herb Portrait.jpg
Herbert S. Terrace

Herbert S. Terrace (born 29 November 1936) is a professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Columbia University. His work covers a broad set of research interests that include behaviorism, [1] animal cognition, [2] ape language [3] and the evolution of language. [4] He is the author of Nim: A Chimpanzee Who Learned Sign Language (1979) and Why Chimpanzees Can't Learn Language and Only Humans Can (2019). Terrace has made important contributions to comparative psychology, many of which have important implications for human psychology. These include discrimination learning, [5] ape language, [6] the evolution of language, [7] and animal cognition. [8]

Contents

Background

Early life

Terrace was born and raised in Brooklyn as the youngest child of two Polish immigrants.[ citation needed ] He attended Stuyvesant High School in New York. His interest in science was instilled by an older sister, Dr. Dorothy Krieger, who won a Lasker Award for her research in endocrinology.[ citation needed ]

Education

Terrace obtained a Bachelor of Arts in psychology (1957) and a Master of Arts in Experimental Psychology (1958) from Cornell University, where he was a Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation Fellow (1957–1958). His mentor during graduate studies was Julian Hochberg. He obtained his PhD in psychology (1961) from Harvard University, where his mentor was B. F. Skinner. [9] At Harvard, he was a USPHS Pre-Doctoral Fellow (1959–1961) [10]

Contributions to psychological theory

Discrimination learning

Learning by trial and error is a basic feature of conditioning theory. [1] For his doctoral dissertation, Terrace showed that it was possible to train a discrimination without any errors. [5] [11] He did this with pigeons who learned to discriminate two narrowly spaced stimuli by starting with a large distance between the discriminative stimuli that was gradually reduced. When a discrimination is trained with errors, subjects exhibit frustration. Such aversive effects are absent when a discrimination is trained without errors. [12] [13] Skinner cited a similar difference in the case of the teaching machine, a device he invented to train human subjects to learn different types of technical material. The teaching machine introduces a new topic with simple questions that are gradually made more difficult. [14] Subjects who learn with few or no errors do not exhibit the frustration they would have experienced had they learned by trial and error. [13]

Ape language and the evolution of language

Terrace joined other leading behaviorists challenging Noam Chomsky's theory that only humans can learn language and grammar. With Project Nim, he attempted to teach a chimpanzee (Nim Chimpsky), [3] [6] to learn American Sign Language (ASL). Sign language was used because of the physical limitations of a chimpanzee's vocal apparatus. Nim's vocabulary grew steadily and he began to combine signs. However, analyses of videotapes of Nim signing with his teachers showed that most of his signs were cued by a teacher's prompts. [6]

Terrace concluded that the only reason Nim (and other chimpanzees) signed was to obtain rewards. [6] [15] Were it not for his teacher, Nim would try to grab a reward directly. When that failed, Nim's only alternative was to sign. Anticipating his signing, Nim's teachers unwittingly made one or more appropriate signs, about a quarter of a second before he signed. Terrace also showed that prompting explained the signing of other chimpanzees who were trained to use ASL. [6]

Because chimpanzees only signed to obtain rewards, their signing was, by definition, limited to the imperative function of words. That differs fundamentally from its declarative function, which is to name objects conversationally. Imperatives are a minuscule portion of human vocabulary. If human communication were limited to imperatives, language would have never evolved. [4] Initially, Terrace hoped that combinations of a chimpanzee's signs would provide evidence that it could create a sentence. What Project Nim showed, however, is that a chimpanzee cannot even use signs declaratively. Until a chimpanzee can learn words, he concluded that it's pointless to ask if it can create a sentence. [3] [4] [16]

The negative results of Project Nim posed two questions: why can a chimpanzee not learn language, words in particular, and which of our ancestors was the first species to use words? To answer the first question, Terrace cited recent discoveries by developmental psychologists who showed that infants experience two non-verbal relations with their caretakers, intersubjectivity and joint attention, before they learn to name objects. [4] [16] He argued that the absence of those precursors in chimpanzees is the best explanation for their failure to learn words. [4]

To answer the second question, Terrace integrated hypotheses by an anthropologist [17] and a linguist [18] who suggested that the caloric requirements of Homo erectus’ large brain was the motivation for their invention of words. Meat was the most efficient way to get those calories. Because Homo erectus could not hunt, they had to scavenge large animals. That required a group effort, in which a scout had to inform members of his group about the location of a dead animal they could not see. Because it required displaced reference, such communication was assumed to be the occasion for the first use of words. [4]

Although Project Nim confirmed Chomsky's view that language is uniquely human, it showed that the use of grammar was not sufficient to distinguish language from animal communication. [4] The use of words, specifically, the ability to name objects, was also necessary. Chomsky argued that grammar was the result of a recent mutation [19] and that the origin of words remained a mystery. [7] Terrace argued that language originated with words, which are as different from the signals that animals use to communicate as words are from grammar. [4] Unlike Chomsky, who argued that language was the result of a mutation, Terrace argued that words could be explained by natural selection. [4]

Terrace's research in Project Nim has been criticized for its research methodology and the various ethical concerns raised by treating Nim "like a human child for the first decade of his life."[ citation needed ] Following the project's conclusion, Nim was effectively abandoned by Terrace, who visited the chimpanzee only once in spite of Nim's sale to a new facility, and his documented difficulties adapting to his new environment.

Animal cognition

Although chimpanzees cannot learn language, there is evidence that their behavior, and that of other animals, is more intelligent than behavior that could result from conditioning. [8] Since Descartes, it has been generally accepted that animals cannot think because they do not have language. [20] To explain intelligent behavior in animals without language and without the principles of conditioning, Terrace argued that it is necessary to show that they can represent objects, that is, solve a problem in the absence of external cues that can guide their behavior. [2]

Serial learning

The simultaneous training paradigm differs from the traditional successive training paradigm in which subjects execute a sequence by responding to individual stimuli, which appear successively as, for example, learning which way to turn at successive choice points in a maze. [21]

When learning a sequence by the simultaneous training paradigm, monkeys were shown an array of photographs on a touch-sensitive video display. On each trial, the position of the photographs varied randomly. As a result, subjects could not rely on its physical location as an external cue for determining to which photograph it should respond first, second, and so on. Instead, they had to memorize the order of each photograph. [21] [22]

Because the simultaneous training paradigm requires the subject to represent each item's ordinal position, it provides an opportunity to study animal cognition. In the early 80s, Terrace helped organize an international conference on animal cognition at Columbia University that discussed the simultaneous training paradigm and other instances in which animals are able to represent stimuli. [8] [2] Since then, animal cognition has become a dominant area in comparative cognition.

In 1985, Terrace began a primate cognition laboratory in which he studied how monkeys use representations in various serial learning tasks, for example, to respond in the correct order to ascending and descending series of numerically defined stimuli, [23] to acquire serial expertise [the ability to become progressively better at learning arbitrary sequences] [24] and to imitate another monkey's sequential performance. [25]

Metacognition

Terrace also studied a monkey's ability to think about its own behavior, that is, its ability to engage in metacognition. In humans, metacognition is assessed by asking subjects how certain they are about their knowledge of a particular topic, for example, how well they did on an exam. To assess metacognition in monkeys, Terrace devised a task in which the monkeys had to place a “bet” that was commensurate with their confidence in the accuracy of a response on a cognitive task. [26] Following each response, monkeys learned to select a “high confidence” symbol if their response was correct and a “low confidence” symbol after an error. They did so correctly even when the appearance of the confidence symbols was delayed for as much as 5 sec after a trial ended. This was the first demonstration that a monkey could think about its behavior.

Honors and awards

Grants

Since 1962, Terrace's research has been funded by grants from the NIH, NSF and the James McDonnell Foundation.

Related Research Articles

Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language, as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate.

Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind and brain; that is, the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend, and produce language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nim Chimpsky</span> Chimpanzee subjected to an extended study of animal language acquisition

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Washoe (chimpanzee)</span> Chimpanzee research subject

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Animal cognition</span> Intelligence of non-human animals

Animal cognition encompasses the mental capacities of non-human animals including insect cognition. The study of animal conditioning and learning used in this field was developed from comparative psychology. It has also been strongly influenced by research in ethology, behavioral ecology, and evolutionary psychology; the alternative name cognitive ethology is sometimes used. Many behaviors associated with the term animal intelligence are also subsumed within animal cognition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Animal language</span> Complex animal communication

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 or movements. Signing among animals may be considered complex enough to be a form of language if the inventory of signs is large. 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.

Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understanding the behavior of humans and other animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex evoked by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that individual's history, including especially reinforcement and punishment contingencies, together with the individual's current motivational state and controlling stimuli. Although behaviorists generally accept the important role of heredity in determining behavior, they focus primarily on environmental events.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Imitation</span> Behaviour in which an individual observes and replicates anothers behaviour

Imitation is a behavior whereby an individual observes and replicates another's behavior. Imitation is also a form of that leads to the "development of traditions, and ultimately our culture. It allows for the transfer of information between individuals and down generations without the need for genetic inheritance." The word imitation can be applied in many contexts, ranging from animal training to politics. The term generally refers to conscious behavior; subconscious imitation is termed mirroring.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great ape language</span> Efforts to teach non-human primates to communicate with humans

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.

Metacognition is an awareness of one's thought processes and an understanding of the patterns behind them. The term comes from the root word meta, meaning "beyond", or "on top of". Metacognition can take many forms, such as reflecting on one's ways of thinking and knowing when and how to use particular strategies for problem-solving. There are generally two components of metacognition: (1) knowledge about cognition and (2) regulation of cognition. A metacognitive model differs from other scientific models in that the creator of the model is per definition also enclosed within it. Scientific models are often prone to distancing the observer from the object or field of study whereas a metacognitive model in general tries to include the observer in the model.

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."

Relational frame theory (RFT) is a psychological theory of human language, cognition, and behaviour. It was developed originally by Steven C. Hayes of University of Nevada, Reno and has been extended in research, notably by Dermot Barnes-Holmes and colleagues of Ghent University.

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.

In behavioral psychology, stimulus control is a phenomenon in operant conditioning that occurs when an organism behaves in one way in the presence of a given stimulus and another way in its absence. A stimulus that modifies behavior in this manner is either a discriminative stimulus (Sd) or stimulus delta (S-delta). Stimulus-based control of behavior occurs when the presence or absence of an Sd or S-delta controls the performance of a particular behavior. For example, the presence of a stop sign (S-delta) at a traffic intersection alerts the driver to stop driving and increases the probability that "braking" behavior will occur. Such behavior is said to be emitted because it does not force the behavior to occur since stimulus control is a direct result of historical reinforcement contingencies, as opposed to reflexive behavior that is said to be elicited through respondent conditioning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura-Ann Petitto</span> American psychologist and neuroscientist (born c. 1954)

Laura-Ann Petitto is a cognitive neuroscientist and a developmental cognitive neuroscientist known for her research and scientific discoveries involving the language capacity of chimpanzees, the biological bases of language in humans, especially early language acquisition, early reading, and bilingualism, bilingual reading, and the bilingual brain. Significant scientific discoveries include the existence of linguistic babbling on the hands of deaf babies and the equivalent neural processing of signed and spoken languages in the human brain. She is recognized for her contributions to the creation of the new scientific discipline, called educational neuroscience. Petitto chaired a new undergraduate department at Dartmouth College, called "Educational Neuroscience and Human Development" (2002-2007), and was a Co-Principal Investigator in the National Science Foundation and Dartmouth's Science of Learning Center, called the "Center for Cognitive and Educational Neuroscience" (2004-2007). At Gallaudet University (2011–present), Petitto led a team in the creation of the first PhD in Educational Neuroscience program in the United States. Petitto is the Co-Principal Investigator as well as Science Director of the National Science Foundation and Gallaudet University’s Science of Learning Center, called the "Visual Language and Visual Learning Center (VL2)". Petitto is also founder and Scientific Director of the Brain and Language Laboratory for Neuroimaging (“BL2”) at Gallaudet University.

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.

Discrimination learning is defined in psychology as the ability to respond differently to different stimuli. This type of learning is used in studies regarding operant and classical conditioning. Operant conditioning involves the modification of a behavior by means of reinforcement or punishment. In this way, a discriminative stimulus will act as an indicator to when a behavior will persist and when it will not. Classical conditioning involves learning through association when two stimuli are paired together repeatedly. This conditioning demonstrates discrimination through specific micro-instances of reinforcement and non-reinforcement. This phenomenon is considered to be more advanced than learning styles such as generalization and yet simultaneously acts as a basic unit to learning as a whole. The complex and fundamental nature of discrimination learning allows for psychologists and researchers to perform more in-depth research that supports psychological advancements. Research on the basic principles underlying this learning style has their roots in neuropsychology sub-processes.

Evolutionary psychology of language is the study of the evolutionary history of language as a psychological faculty within the discipline of evolutionary psychology. It makes the assumption that language is the result of a Darwinian adaptation.

Social learning refers to learning that is facilitated by observation of, or interaction with, another animal or its products. Social learning has been observed in a variety of animal taxa, such as insects, fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals.

Number sense in animals is the ability of creatures to represent and discriminate quantities of relative sizes by number sense. It has been observed in various species, from fish to primates. Animals are believed to have an approximate number system, the same system for number representation demonstrated by humans, which is more precise for smaller quantities and less so for larger values. An exact representation of numbers higher than three has not been attested in wild animals, but can be demonstrated after a period of training in captive animals.

References

  1. 1 2 Terrace, H. S. (1966). Stimulus Control. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. pp. 271–344.
  2. 1 2 3 Roitblat, H. L.; Bever, T.G.; Terrace, H.S. (1984). Animal cognition: Proceedings of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Conference. Hillsdale, New Jersey: 'Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
  3. 1 2 3 Terrace, H. S. (1979). Nim. New York, New York: 'A. Knopf.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Terrace, H. S. (2019). Why Chimpanzees Can't Learn Language and Only Humans Can. New York, New York: 'Columbia University Press.
  5. 1 2 Terrace, H. S. (1963a). "Discrimination learning with and without errors". Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. 6: 1–27. doi:10.1901/jeab.1963.6-1. PMC   1404228 . PMID   13980667.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Terrace, H. S.; Petitto, L.A.; Sanders, R.J.; Bever, T.G. (1979). "Can an ape create a sentence?". Science. 206 (4421): 891–902. Bibcode:1979Sci...206..891T. doi:10.1126/science.504995. PMID   504995.
  7. 1 2 Studdert-Kennedy, M.; Terrace, H. S. (2017). "In the beginning: A review of Robert C. Berwick and Noam Chomsky's Why Only Us". Journal of Language Evolution. 2 (2): 114–125. doi:10.1093/jole/lzx005. PMC   6715309 . PMID   31467686.
  8. 1 2 3 Terrace, H. S. (1984). Roitblat, H. L.; Bever, T. G.; Terrace, H. S. (eds.). Animal Cognition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. pp. 7–28.
  9. ↑ "Herbert S. Terrace Ph.D".
  10. ↑ Terrace, H. S. (April 1963). "Errorless Transfer of a Discrimination Across Two Continua". Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. 6 (2): 223–232. doi:10.1901/jeab.1963.6-223. PMC   1404283 . PMID   13980669.
  11. ↑ Terrace, H. S. (1963). "Errorless transfer of a discrimination across two continua". Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. 6 (2): 223–232. doi:10.1901/jeab.1963.6-223. PMC   1404283 . PMID   13980669.
  12. ↑ Terrace, H. S. (1966). "Discrimination learning and inhibition". Science. 154 (3757): 1677–1680. Bibcode:1966Sci...154.1677T. doi:10.1126/science.154.3757.1677. PMID   5924203. S2CID   7246016.
  13. 1 2 Terrace, H. S. (1968). "Discrimination learning, the peak shift, and behavioral contrast". Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. 11 (6): 727–741. doi:10.1901/jeab.1968.11-727. PMC   1338626 . PMID   16811320.
  14. ↑ Skinner, B. F. (1961). "Teaching Machines". Scientific American. 205 (5): 90–107. Bibcode:1961SciAm.205e..90S. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1161-90. PMID   13913636.
  15. ↑ Terrace, H. S. (1985). "In the beginning was the name". American Psychologist. 40 (9): 1011–1028. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.40.9.1011. PMID   4062032.
  16. 1 2 Terrace, H. S. (2013). "Becoming Human: Why two minds are better than one". In Metcalfe, Janet; Terrace, Herbert (eds.). Agency and joint attention. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 11–48.
  17. ↑ Hardy, S. B. (2009). Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
  18. ↑ Bickerton, D. (2014). More Than Nature Needs: Language, Mind, and Evolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  19. ↑ Berwick, R. C.; Chomsky, N. (2016). Why only us. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  20. ↑ Terrace, H. S. (1985). "Animal cognition: Thinking without language". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. B, Biological Sciences. 308 (1135): 113–128. Bibcode:1985RSPTB.308..113T. doi: 10.1098/rstb.1985.0014 .
  21. 1 2 Terrace, H. S. (1984a). "Simultaneous chaining: The problem it poses for traditional chaining theory". In Commons, M. L.; Herrnstein, R.; Wagner, A. (eds.). Quantitative Analyses of Behavior: Discrimination Processes. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Co. pp. 115–138.
  22. ↑ Terrace, H. S. (2005). "The simultaneous chain: A new approach to serial learning". Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 9 (4): 202–210. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2005.02.003. PMID   15808503. S2CID   9729612.
  23. ↑ Brannon, E.; Terrace, H. S. (1998). "Ordering of the numerosities 1-9 by monkeys". Science. 282 (5389): 746–749. Bibcode:1998Sci...282..746B. doi:10.1126/science.282.5389.746. PMID   9784133.
  24. ↑ Terrace, H. S.; Son, L. K.; Brannon, E. (2003). "Serial expertise of rhesus macaques". Psychological Science. 14 (1): 66–73. doi:10.1111/1467-9280.01420. PMID   12564756. S2CID   5567637.
  25. ↑ Subiaul, F.; Cantlon, J. F.; Holloway, R. L.; Terrace, H. S. (2004). "Cognitive imitation in rhesus macaques". Science. 305 (5682): 407–410. Bibcode:2004Sci...305..407S. doi:10.1126/science.1099136. PMID   15256673. S2CID   21531334.
  26. ↑ Kornell, N.; Son, L. K.; Terrace, H. S. (2007). "Transfer of metacognitive skills and hint seeking in monkeys". Psychological Science. 18 (1): 64–71. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01850.x. PMID   17362380. S2CID   5841499.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.