WK+4

HELLO GROUP FOUR :) last night some of us have talked about writing responses via the Wiki. i got some more information on that after class. after any one of us writing something, all of us can AND should go into that response and edit, add, correct for a communal response "paper" so to speak. :)

So this would be the place to post responses, and edit the responses, to Terrace reading, as well as post anything deemed helpful or related to that reading.

"Can an Ape Create a Sentence?" H.S Terrace; L.A.Pettito; R.J. Sanders; T.G. Bever

As the title indicates, the research described in this article is related to the abiltiy of apes to formulate what the author considers a true sentence. This comparison is made to human language as it is well established that apes in research as well as other animals have the ability to find agreeance on the use of words, but human language supercedes that ability by the meaningful combination into sentences. The authors followed up on conclusions derived by Patterson, Rumbough, Premack, and the Gardeners who had worked independently with a variety of apes on communication possibilities. All used non-auditory systems to accomadate the apes" "inability to articulate many sounds." Gardeners are quoted to liken Washoe's use of sentences to early sentences of children. Patterson is quoted in saying that "language is not longer the exlusive domain of man." the assumption pursued is that the formulation of actual sentences requires grammar. A chimpanzee, Nim (I wonder what the name Nim Chimpsky says about the authors esteem of Noam Chompsky?), was kept from age 2 weeks in human environments and taught about 125 signs. Nim's communications were recorded, and his word combinations counted and compared for structural consistencies. The data gathered was also supplemented by data collected from Washoe, a different signing chimp, and some other research. The authors painstakenly compare the combinations against probability and some data of young children. There appeared to be a clear preference for Nim to sign the reference to himself following a verb almost 5 times as often as prefacing the verb with "me" or "Nim." He also provided enough examples of combinations that learning by rote was ruled out. However, his multi-sign combinations were found to not be as spontanous as originally thought as video tapes show the teachers signing along with Nim in a way that appears leading. Also the tapes showed that Nim (and Washoe) interrupted the human signer more that the limited human sample, as well as used much less expansion on what was signed to him, but more repetition of signs. also Nims combinations of more than 2 or 3 words were noted to repeat words rather than expand on a word with more detail. i.e. "banana Nim me Nim"" as a 4 word combo or "drink Nim drink Nim." He clearly communicated emphasis with his repetetion, but it was noted that this is not typical in human children. Detailed reviews of what is known as the more amazing results from the Washoe research, the "water-bird" "baby in my drink" "time to eat" are devalued by examining timing of the teacher's signing versus Washoe's, which shows that he was led more than previously advertised. The author's opinion about the Washoe data is shown by his using the term "glossing" twice to mean "reported" and claims another result was derived "gratouisly." Lastly the ape's limitation was noted as far as compared with human children, they will eventually just make vast strides when the ape's ability to improve his sentences arrests. Comparing the ability of apes (and pigeons as a side line) to form consistent sequences is denied to be like a sentence due to lack of grammar as the author understands it. The ability of the chimps to answer questions specifically was dismissed due to the answers having multiple choices and the apes being "drilled extensively" (author's term) on these questions. Finally the authors conclude:"For the moment, our detailed investigation suggests that an ape's language learning is severely restricted. ... they show no unequivocal evidence of mastering the conversational, semantic, or syntactic organization of language." The author's appeared to have their mind made up from the beginning, and almost show contempt for the the data collection of the quoted research project, but fail to explain how "me hug cat" is not a sentence, despite the simple means and message. Their data collection appears stringent, though still flawed by having only one subject, little Nim, and limited human data to compare. The message that apes can't communicate like we can is not surprising. It is because they are not human, and our ability to use language is undeniably unique and hardely questioned. Being bound to prove just that, it appears that the amazing ability to communicate with an arbitrary system not natural to the animal is left as unimpressive, when in fact it is a strong indicator of how we may have started, what we were able to do before we became human. believing that language development "paid for" a larger brain, this fits neatly into the continuing evolution of language theory. What does not fit neatly is the fact that even with sufficient evidence to make their point, the authors still felt the need to add yet another subject to the list of mismanaged primates. Little Nim was removed from his mom at 2 weeks old. He was kept from socializing with his kind, and thereby most likely not fully develop his social abilities. Who knows if the alleged tendency to interrupt his teachers is not linked to his lack of socialization? . 125 proven words, proven to be able to use spontanously by the authors's own strict rules, and the result is apes do not have grammar, humans do, and somewhere a disrupted ape in a cage without the people that did this to him, and with trouble interacting with his species.....

A couple of quotes from Bickerton relating to the reading: page 46. "We should not be looking for linguistic precursors, but for some point of flexibility in ACS..."

page 50. "But syntax, I began to realize, may have become possible only because two million years of protolanguage use brought about significant changes in its user's brain."

- The authors intentions in this paper are unclear. I find both sentences that say Nim's signs were not a form of primitive language and that Nim couldn't learn language. While the methods used in this research probably produced a ton of data I believe that it is scientifically unethical to produce data and then scour it for results instead of following the scientific method for individual hypothesis. I can understand how raising a baby chimp may lead to mid-research hypothesis and that data of this magnitude may show some really interesting patterns, but I would appreciate if the results of the initial research and the mid research ideas were a little more separated in this paper. Additionally the methods section says that the parents and teachers spoke to eachother in ASL but gave Nim lessons in English word order. ASL and English have different word orders and short sentences in ASL include a repetition of the pronoun. I wonder if that was in the least bit confusing for Nim.

The conclusion attempts to inform us that the chimps that have learned how to use sign language and other ways of communicating not as we are capable of, but mainly as a way to get reward. Whether the reward is praise, food, playtime..etc, the chimp learns that if he associates the correct things with signs or pictures, then he will be rewarded. "The function of the symbols of an ape's vocabulary appears to be not so much to identify things or to convey information as,for example,Skinner's concept of "tacts" as it is to satisfy a demand that it use that symbol in order to obtain some reward."

As far as the basic idea that that chimps cannot learn to produce sentences (with the challenge that they have to be spontaneous) I do not find the results very enlightening. That is to say that we can easily substitute common sense for a large scale experiment such as this one. If primates were programmed to pick up language the same way a human baby is programed or even less than a human baby is programed we would probably have chimps in Zoos all over the world speaking or understanding speach. I'd like to see more research focused on theoretical hypotheses on the evolution of language (sort of like Bickerton) than these kinds of experiments. Experiments should focus on testing theories of language evolution more than trying to connect chimp brains to human brains or any other animal for that matter.