Psyc222@31

Chimps, Chumps, and Language

Researchers Primate Style

1) Hayes' Chimp Speech

2) Kellogg's' Chimp Speech

3) Gardners' Washoe AmSign Lan

4) Terrace Nim Chimpsky AmSignLan

5) Premack Sarah Plastic Symbs

6) Savage- Kanzi Lexigram bd

Rumbaugh 13000 words

20000combinations

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1) Hayes and Hayes (1951) tried literally to teach chimps to

speak. Mama. Papa. Cup. Not fruitful. Speech is not

language. Kellogs

2) 3) Non-oral language (ASL) Hand gestures. Allen and Beatrice

Gardner. Washoe. Rewarded imitations. Signed regularly and

always in her presence. Signing vocabulary of 160 words.

She learned to combine words "gimme flower" Washoe sorry

More fruit Go out Water bird. Conclusion. Language

development of a 3 year old. Little progress toward the

3) Shift from speech. Premack (Premack principle) used small

plastic symbols of various colors and shapes as

substitutes for words. Sarah was taught to arrange these

arbitrary symbols to communicate messages. %= Mary, &

Sarah< $=give, 3=apple. The sophistication of this exchange might not impress you--until you learn that the student is a two-and-half year old

chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky. The conversation might sound

odd to you but it was produced and conducted in sign

language. Terrace (errorless discrimination fame) who raised

the Chimp (like the Gardeners Washoe) from birth in a home

environment. Conversation does appear to be intelligent and

appropriate. Does Nim know how to speak? If so it would mean

that language is not specifically human. It is my feeling

that studying some of the studies in animal communication

provides a good starting point for our departure into

psycholinguistics. (the study of the psychological mechanisms

underlying use of language).

Communicating with chimpanzees:

rules of grammar. Terrace.

4) Sue Savage Rumbaugh, Rose Sevcik and Liz Ruppert. (1986)

Yerkes primate laboratory

Kanzi: Yerkes primate center: attends language classes with mother, Lana, and exhibits extraordinary observation and generative language. Kanzi's performance provides the best evidence available so far that a nonhuman not only can learn a substantial vocabulary but also can learn to form word combinations characterized by grammar.

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A) Purpose: Developmental account of how chimps acquire

ability to communicate: Touching geometric figures on a

keyboard. Each symbol represents a word. "Yerkish" Robert

Yerkes. Chimp =Kanzi. Kanzi's mother was trained to

communicate with caretakers with same symbol/figure

arrangement: Separation. Kanzi was permitted to attend

mom’s language lesions. He appeared to search for

particular symbols without specific reinforcement.

Behavior reflected learning.

B) Subject: Pigmy chimp.

C) Method: Utterances after 2 and 1/2

Computer based data: Graphic symbols used to communicate at

all times (both inside and outside).

Results: 50 words with 800 combinations.

(symbols generally represented food, chase, groom,

Combinations were spontaneous. Person chase Kanzi and vice

versa.

Discussions: Study provides stronger support than previous

research for the hypothesis that chimps may able to

follow rules of language in generating spontaneous

sentences. Used symbols without specific training. Mama.

Comment: Impressive accomplishments. Big question is Kanzi

using symbols like humans use them. But is it really

language. To maybe better understand the controversy let's

study the structure of language and get back to the Kanzi

question.