Animal Language

1
Animal Language

• Yule, George (1996). The Study of Language.
  Cambridge Cambridge University Press. (chapter 4)

2
Animal Language

• Do animals understand spoken language?
• Whoa to horses? they stop
• Heel to dogs ? they follow at heel
• Standard explanation
• S? R (Stimulus Response)

3
Teaching chimpanzees

• Luella and Winthrop KELLOG (1930)
• Infant chimpanzee Gua
• Raised together with their infant son
• Gua understood about 100 words but did not say
  any of them

4
Teaching chimpanzees

• Catherine and Keith HAYES (1940s)
• reared Viki as if she were a human child
• shaped her mouth as she produced sounds
• Viki managed to produce words mama, papa and cup
  (poorly articulated)

5
Teaching chimpanzees

• Beatrix and Allan GARDNER (1966)
• Female chimpanzee Washoe
• American sign language
• Over period of 3 ½ years
• Washoe used signs for more than 100 words
  (airplane, banana, window, woman, you...)

6
Washoe

• developed the ability to produce sentences
• Gimme tickle, more fruit, open food drink
  (refrigerator)
• understood far more signs than she could actually
  produce

7
Teaching chimpanzees

• Ann and David Premack (1972)
• chimpanzee Sarah
• set of plastic shapes for communicating
• shapes represented words e.g. blue triangle ?
  apple

8
Sarah

• vertical order to build sentences
• Mary give chocolate Sarah.
• understood complex structures such as
• If Sarah put red and green, Mary give Sarah
  chocolate.

9
Teaching chimpanzees

• Duane Rumbaugh (1977)
• chimpanzee Lana
• used artificial language Yerkish
• set of symbols on a large keyboard linked to a
  computer

10
Lana

• could press up to four symbols in the correct
  sequence to produce messages
• e.g. please machine give water.

11
Teaching chimpanzees

• Herbert Terrace (1979)
• arguments against the evidence of linguistic
  abilities in animals
• chimp Nim Chimsky (play on the linguist Noam
  Chomsky)

12
Nim Chimsky

• American Sign Language under controlled
  conditions
• videotaping of classroom activities
• over a two year period

13
Nim Chimsky

• produced a large number of single-word signs
• developed two-word combinations such as more
  drink, give banana
• Nims longer utterances were simply a repetition
  of simpler structures, not an expansion into more
  complex structures

14
Similar experiments

• Clever Hans German horse
• could use his hoof beats to answer arithmetical
  questions
• responded to subtle visual clues

15
Dolphins

• Buzz and Doris (1960s)
• Means of signalling across an opaque barrier
• Doris was able to tell Buzz how he could get a
  fish snack
• when Doris saw a flashing light she had to press
  a paddle on the left hand side and tell Buzz to
  do the same
• when the light was kept steady Doris had to press
  the right hand paddle

16
Dolphins

• behaviour was just conditioned responses
• Doris would continue to tell Buzz when he could
  see the light himself and even when he was taken
  out of the tank

17
Noam Chomsky

• the acquisition of even the barest rudiments of
  language is quite beyond the capacity of an
  otherwise intelligent ape.