Alan Garnham Talking Apes

1
LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT

• TALKING APES

2
Overview

• Brief introduction to some of the most famous
  ape language studies
• Some results from two of the most important
  studies (Sarah, Washoe)
• General and specific shortcomings of ape language
• Conclusions

3
Some Famous (non-)Talking Apes and their Trainers

• Chimps reared as children in families. Trainers
  attempted to teach them spoken language
• Gua (raised along with human child, Donald)
• Kellogg and Kellogg (published account, 1933)
• Produced no recognisable words, maybe understood
  70
• Vicki
• Keith and Catherine Hayes (published account,
  1951)
• Produced four poorly articulated words
• mama, papa, up, cup
• Understood more words, including some combinations

4
Some Famous Talking Apes and their Trainers

• Washoe
• (Beatrice Allen Gardner Roger Fouts) - ASL
• Sarah
• (David Premack) - Plastic Token Language
• Lana, Sherman, Austin
• (Duane Rumbaugh Sue Savage-Rumbaugh) - Yerkish
• Nim Chimpsky
• (Herb Terrace Laura Petitto) - ASL
• Koko (Gorilla)
• (Francine "Penny" Patterson) - ASL
• Kanzi, Leakey, Imo (Bonobos)
• (Sue Savage-Rumbaugh Duane Rumbaugh) - symbol
  language like Yerkish

5
Why study Language in Apes?

• Could provide insights into the nature of
  language
• Two main studies generated the controversy that
  started in the late 1960s/early 1970s
• Premack - "Sarah" - operant conditioning, plastic
  symbols
• Gardners - "Washoe" - taught ASL in a linguistic
  (quasi-home) environment

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Results - Sarah

• Learned over 100 symbols
• Could respond to complex requests
• Sarah put banana bucket apple pail
• Could use a symbols meaning not, same,
  different, is the name of, ifthen
• BUT much better performance with original trainer

7
Results - Washoe

• Learned about 200 ASL signs
• Produced strings of signs (but see later)
• Said to have signed water bird on seeing a duck
• Could answer some kinds of WH-questions

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GENERAL SHORTCOMINGS OF CHIMP LANGUAGE

• Terrace (trainer of Nim Chimpsky) argues that
  chimps cannot learn the
• conversational
• semantic
• syntactic
• organisation of language.

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SPECIFIC SHORTCOMINGS OF CHIMP LANGUAGE (Terrace)

• Chimps rarely initiate language use
• Most signs are responses to teachers.
• Chimps almost always imitate their teachers
• Seem to lack spontaneity of children.
• Chimps only sign to get reward
• Usually grab first!!
• Lots of redundancy, e.g.
• You me you out me (Washoe)
• Please milk please me like drink apple bottle
  (Koko)
• give orange me give eat orange me eat orange
  give me eat orange give me you (Nim)

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SPECIFIC SHORTCOMINGS OF CHIMP LANGUAGE (Cont.)

• Not much happens as utterances grow longer.
  Children add new information, chimps don't
• E.g. Nim's most frequent 2, 3, and 4-word
  utterances
• play me, me Nim, tickle me
• play me Nim, eat me Nim, tickle me Nim
• eat drink eat drink, eat Nim eat Nim
• Chimps do not invent missing features (function
  words, embedding) as children would invent them
  in a creole
• Chimps never learn the two-way nature of
  conversation (turn taking). They often interrupt.
• Chimps confuse form, not meaning - unlike children

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But...

• Remember that Terrace came from a behaviorist
  background.
• Lieberman (1984, chapter 10) presents evidence
  that Terraces views are biased

12
Conclusions

• It is fairly easy to show that apes can learn to
  use something like human words for communicative
  purposes
• It is much more difficult to show that they can
  learn other aspects of human language
• AND REMEMBER it is not clear that children have
  to learn these things at all