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QUESTIONS IN ANIMAL LANGUAGE RESEARCH Animal Language research attempts to answer the following questions:
NON-HUMAN ANIMALS THAT DEMONSTRATE UNDERSTANDING A '' Production '' is a Stream of '' Lexeme s'' with Semantic Content . A Language is a Grammar and a set of lexemes. A '' Sentence '' (or Statement ) is a stream of lexemes which obeys a grammar, with a beginning and an end. Non-human animals have been recorded to have produced behaviors which are consistent with meanings accorded to human sentence productions. (That is, some animals in the following species can be said to "understand" (''receive''), and some can "apply" (''produce'') consistent, appropriate, grammatical streams of communication.) David Premack and Jacques Vauclair have cited language research for the following species: PRIMATE USE OF SIGN LANGUAGE Sign language and computer keyboards are used in primate language research because non-human primates lack Vocal Cords and other human Speech organs. However, primates do possess the manual dexterity required for keyboard operation. Many researchers into animal language have presented the results of the studies described below as evidence of linguistic abilities in animals. However, it is important to note that many of their conclusions have been disputed {Link without Title} . Kanzi Kanzi , a Bonobo (pygmy chimpanzee, ''Pan paniscus''), is believed to understand more human language than any other nonhuman animal in the world. Kanzi apparently learned by eavesdropping on the keyboard lessons researcher Sue Savage-Rumbaugh was giving to his adoptive mother. One day, Rumbaugh used the computer to say to Kanzi, "Can you make the dog bite the snake?" It is believed Kanzi had never heard this sentence before. In answering the question, Kanzi searched among the objects present until he found a toy dog and a toy snake, put the snake in the dog's mouth, and used his thumb and finger to close the dog's mouth over the snake. In further testing beginning when he was 7 ½ years old, Kanzi was asked more than 600 complex questions, responding correctly over 74% of the time. Washoe , minimizing the use of the spoken voice. The researchers acted as friends and companions to Washoe, using various games to make the learning as exciting as possible. The Gardners used many different training methods:
The results of the Gardners' efforts were as follows:
PLASTIC TOKENS Sarah (chimpanzee) and two other chimpanzees Elizabeth (chimpanzee) and Peony (chimpanzee) in the research programs of David Premack demonstrated the ability to produce streams of token selections. The selections came from a vocabulary of several dozen plastic tokens; it took each of the chimpanzees hundreds of trials to reliably associate a token with a referent, such as an apple or banana. The tokens were chosen to be completely different in appearance from the referents. After learning these protocols, Sarah was then able to associate other tokens with consistent behaviors, such as negation, name-of, and if-then. The plastic tokens were placed on a magnetic slate, within a rectangular frame in a line. The tokens had to be selected and placed in a consistent order (a Grammar ) in order for the trainers to reward the chimpanzees. One other chimpanzee, Gussie (chimpanzee) was trained along with Sarah but failed to learn a single word. Other chimpanzees in the projects were not trained in the use of the tokens. LEXIGRAMS Lexigram s are images on flat "keyboards", arranged in rectangular arrays. {Link without Title} CRITICISMS OF PRIMATE LANGUAGE RESEARCH Many prominent Scientist s, including MIT Linguist Noam Chomsky and Cognitive Scientist Steven Pinker , are skeptical about claims made for Great Ape language research. Among the reasons for skepticism are the differences in ease with which human beings and apes can learn language, the lack of a clear beginning and end to signed gestures, and the lack of proof regarding whether the apes actually understand language or are simply doing a clever Trick . While vocabulary words from American Sign Language are used to train the apes, native users of ASL note that mere knowledge of ASL's vocabulary does not equate to ASL, but more closely reflects Pidgin Signed English which is not a language. In the research involving Washoe, all researchers returned lists of signs Washoe used, with the exception of the one deaf native ASL user who reported no signs but many gestures. Deaf people make clear distinctions about what handshapes, palm orientations and places of articulation signs must have to provide meaning. Thus apes are seen as attempting to approximate these complex rules but are thought of as failing because of consistent malformation of the individual signs. Another approach can be found in was :We now know that someone who comprehends Speech must know Language , even if he or she cannot produce it -- p. 13, Premack and Premack. COMPARISON TO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE A similar debate exists in the field of Artificial Intelligence . Advocates of the Turing Test and recent variations such as the Loebner Prize Contest say that if a computer program can imitate language well enough that a human cannot tell whether the program is human, then the program should be considered intelligent. A criticism of this approach is the ELIZA Effect , a claim that humans readily Anthropomorph ize anything displaying vaguely humanlike traits, and can be fooled by superficial imitations. In the context of nonhuman primate language, the deeper philosophical debate is over how to judge an animal or machine's display of the outward appearance of some aspects of intelligence: do these signs point to human-like intelligence, or should they be considered "tricks?" SEE ALSO
''Researchers''
''Animals''
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