| Washoe (chimpanzee) |
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Washoe is a Chimpanzee , Currently living at the Chimpanzee And Human Communication Institute (CHCI) at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington . She was the first non-human to acquire at least some elements of American Sign Language (ASL), as part of a controversial research experiment into Animal Intelligence . She was named for Washoe County, Nevada , where she was raised and taught to use ASL. In 1967 , Allen and Beatrice Gardner established a project to teach Washoe ASL at the University Of Nevada, Reno . Previous attempts to teach chimpanzees vocal languages (the Gua and Viki projects) had failed. The Gardners based their approach on the claim that previous projects had failed because chimpanzees' vocal apparatus is somewhat limited --not because they are inherently unable to learn language (as many Evolutionary Biologists and Cognitive Linguists claim). They chose ASL as a vehicle for their study because they noted that chimpanzees spontaneously use bodily gestures in Communication in flexible ways. Like the chimpanzees in previous studies, Washoe was raised in a language-rich environment (in her case, a sign language-rich environment) that was designed to mimic that of a human child in many ways. Like many other studies involving attempts to teach language or language like behaviour to Ape s, the Washoe project has been highly controversial, and different authors make wildly conflicting claims about its success. However, peer-reviewed research papers, and widely circulated film records, show beyond reasonable doubt that under the Gardners' instruction programme, Washoe did succeed in:
Today Washoe resides at Central Washington University.
The following claims of Washoe's abilities are disputed:
The latter two claims have not been backed up by peer-reviewed scientific research papers, though the intriguing report that Washoe passed on ASL to another chimpanzee has helped nourish interest in Chimpanzee Culture . There are other independent lines of evidence for Cultural Transmission of behaviour in animals, especially Primate s. Critics of the Washoe project have argued that:
The main criticism of animal language projects have been based on the assumption that language facility is merely vocal, rather than an Evolutionarily -developed facility --innate to the brain of the species which uses it. Many evolution and cognitive scientists refer to Washoe and other attempts to teach human language to non-human species as futile. Some reason that it is based on a flawed premise that any species may have developed an ability or facility which has never actually been manifested in the course of its evolution. Noam Chomsky once compared the claims as equivalent to "suddenly discovering that humans could fly" --one could reasonably assume that flight would be a benefit to survival, and therefore would either be manifest or not. However, such an argument can be interpreted as a gross generalization of such studies and not truly scientific skepticism. The main criticism of the Washoe project in particular has been that the results were skewed interpretation based on the "delusion" of the researchers. The social "immersion" method used by the Gardners is known to produce a " Clever Hans effect", whereby humans subconsciously provide gestural clues to the animal. Aside from the conclusions, the actual methodologies and data for both the Koko and Washoe projects remain private, and in response to the Washoe and Koko projects, Herbert Terrace began the Nim Chimpsky project. The Gardners disagreed with the "strict" methodology used by Terrace, claiming that, though open to review, his methodologies were unlikely to produce similar results. This makes some sense as it is a common opinion among professional educators that intellectual development does not blossom in a barren and emotionally repressive envirenment such as the one proposed in Terrace's studies. The Gardners threatened to sue Terrace for illegally using slides from their published findings without permission. A number of other projects have sought to establish ASL or other forms of language in other chimpanzees and also in Gorilla s and Bonobo s, as well as in non-primate species such as Dolphin s, Woodpecker s, and Parrot s (specifically, an African Grey Parrot ). A clear view of the potential and limitation of other species' use of human languages is likely to come from an integration of the results of all these projects, rather than an essentially historical pursuit of what did or did not happen in Project Washoe. However the Washoe project will remain a milestone in the study of Animal Cognition , as the first publicly accepted success in teaching language to an animal of another species, and thus the stimulus for virtually all the projects that have followed it. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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