Additional Notes Gardner and Gardner (1969)

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Study 10 - Gardner and Gardner (1969)Teaching Sign Language to a Chimpanzee

Field of psychology : Cognitive

1. CONTEXT AND AIMS

Context

Historically, it has been argued that one of the main things that make humans different fromanimals is our ability to talk. While most animals communicate it is argued that only humanshave language . Dogs for example communicate using a variety of physical cues, bodylanguage and barks. However, it would not be appropriate to call it language. Can you thinkof any other animals that can talk?

The linguist Charles Hockett (1960) produced a list called the Design features of Language. He proposed that animal and human communications had some features whichwere similar, but that even the most basic of human languages contained many featureswhich animal communication did not. A few features are:

Interchangability: the ability to both send and receive messages Semanticity: the use of symbols to stand for or refer to objects situations and

events Displacement: communication about things not currently present Productivity: the creation of an infinite variety of new messages Learning and transmission: the acquisition of a language and its transference to

the next generation.

For example, honeybees communicate with other bees from their hive toinform them of location of resources such as pollen, water and nectar. Using awaggle dance, a figure of 8 dance, bees communicate direction and distanceof the resources. Hockett argued that although the honeybees weredemonstrating some of his identified features of language (e.g. semanticity,displacement etc) they did not contain all of the features he had set out.

Chomsky (1957) argued that we have a special part of the brain (the

language acquisition device, or LAD) that means we are biologicallyprogrammed to acquire language. This explains why human cultures all overthe world, no matter how primitive have language, and why children acquire itso rapidly and naturally. According to this view, other animals should not beable to acquire language.

However, a number of researchers have tried to demonstrate that in fact some animals canacquire human language, which would challenge this idea.

Hayes & Hayes (1951) worked extensively with a chimpanzee called Vicki. They aimed toteach her to produce a vocal language, however in their 6 years of work withVicki; she was only able to make four sounds which approximated to Englishwords mama, papa, cup and up.

What does this suggest about the ability of chimpanzees to learn language?

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Premack and Premack (1966) raised a chimpanzee, Sarah, and taughther to use different coloured and shaped chips to represent words. Sheplaced these on a board to make sentences. First she learned the symbol forapple, then to string symbols together to form sentences (first Mary +apple , next Mary + give + apple, and finally Sarah + give + apple + Mary ).By the end she had acquired 130 signs and could make sentences of up to 8units long. However, Sarah did not spontaneously ask questions, althoughshe would practice sentences on her own.

One barrier to animals learning human language might be that they arenot physiologically suited to producing the sort of sounds necessary.Bryan (1963) reports that the vocal apparatus of the chimpanzee is verydifferent to that of man. Even though chimpanzees are capable of makingmany different sounds, vocalization tends to occur in situations of high

stress or excitement, when undisturbed, chimpanzees are normally silent.Gardner & Gardener therefore concluded that a vocal language was notappropriate for this species.

Yerkes (1943) does however note that laboratory chimpanzees are capable of spontaneously developing begging and similar behaviours and that the use of their hands to help solve manipulatory, mechanical problems is a particular skillof the chimpanzee. Therefore while oral language may not be appropriate, they

may be well suited to learning sign language.

AimsGardner and Gardner aimed to investigate whetherthey could teach a chimpanzee to communicate usinga human language, specifically American SignLanguage (ASL). Their intention was to raise thechimpanzee in the same way that a child is raised sothat language would be acquired naturally.

They decided to use a chimpanzee because thespecies is highly intelligent, very sociable and knownfor its strong attachments. Sociability is especiallyimportant because it is a prime motivator in thedevelopment of language. It is therefore best to usean animal interested in socialising.

There were several reason for deciding to use signlanguage. First, previous evidence suggests thatchimpanzees have difficulty using their vocal apparatus. Secondly, chimpanzees are goodwith their hands, meaning they should cope well with the mechanics of signing.

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Instrumental (operant) conditioning: i.e. using rewards to increase the likelihoodthat a behaviour would be repeated. Tickling was the most effective reward to use withWashoe.

Shaping: Washoe was initially rewarded for producing a sign that was similar to theactual sign, but gradually she would only be rewarded for closer and closerapproximations.

Direct Tuition: a tutor would form her hands into the right gestures and then shewould repeat this. A much quicker method of acquiring new words. This core study article covers a 22 month period during which a record was kept of Washoeslanguage acquisition. In the early days it was easy to keep records of her signing behaviour,but as the amount of signing and number of signs increased, a new procedure was needed.Each new sign that she acquired had to fulfil certain criteria before it would count as a newsign for Washoe.

Three different observers had to report seeing Washoe use the sign spontaneously andappropriately.

The sign had to be recorded every day over a 15 day period.

What is the purpose of this method of recording the observations?

You can watch a video of Washoe talking at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eUy7q227DI

3. FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS

Findings

By the end of the project, 30 words met thecriteria set by Gardner and Gardner. The speedat which the words were learned are shown inthe table here.

Using thisdata, draw

a graph (left)

The 30 words are shown here in order of acquisition. The earliest signs were simple demands, the later ones were mainly the names of objects.

Come-gimme; More; Up; Sweet; Open; Tickle; Go; Out; Hurry; Hear-listen; Toothbrush; Drink;Hurt; Sorry; Funny; Please; Food-eat; Flower; Cover-blanket; You; Napkin-bib; In; Brush; Hat;Shoe; Pants; Clothes; Cat; Key; Baby.

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Months of training

7 14 21Number of signs Washoecould use

4 13 30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eUy7q227DIhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eUy7q227DIhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eUy7q227DIhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eUy7q227DI


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Four other word ( dog, smell, me and lean) were judged to be stable, but had not met thespecified criteria. Some specific examples of the ways that Washoe used words are as follows;

More: when asking to continue or repeat anactivity, e.g. more tickling or a second helping of food Drink: when asking for water. To indicate pop,Washoe often combined drink with sweet .

Sorry: after biting someone, or when someonewas hurt in another way (not necessarily byWashoe). Also used when told to apologise formischief. Baby: for dolls (both human and animals) Please: when asking for an object or activity.Often combined with go, out, drink.

Washoes language acquisition resembled the way human infants learn to talk in a number of ways:

1.Differentiating: Washoe came to use the sign flower toinclude references to odours, for example when smelling

cooking or opening a tobacco pouch. The Gardners taughtWashoe a new sign for smell using passive shaping andprompting. Washoe learned to discriminate between the twosigns, although she did continue to misuse flower in a smellcontext

2. Transfer: Another aspect of learning language is learning togeneralise from one thing to a general class of objects. Washoeshowed this ability early on in being able to apply words likeflower to different kinds of flower, and also to use the word dog

when he heard a dog barking, not just when she saw a dog.

3. Combining signs: Like human children, once she had learned about eight signs,Washoe started to combine two or three signs to represent more complex meaningssuch as listen dog to refer to a barking dog. This may have happened because theresearchers combined signs themselves so in a sense Washoe was therefore imitatingthem. She did, however, produce her own novel combinations such as open food drink (open the fridge). And go sweet (to be carried to the raspberry bush). Most famouslyshe signed baby in my drink when a doll was in her cup.

Read table 7.4 on age 114 for more findings relating to the success of different language

acquisition strategies.Conclusions

The Gardners were wary of answering the question of whetherWashoe had acquired language because they felt it was against thespirit of their research. They argued that the question can only beanswered if there is a clear way to distinguish between one class of communicative behaviour which could be called language, andanother class that cannot. However, some firm conclusions weremade:

The study did show that chimps can be taught more than afew words (in previous studies they had only learned up tofour).

The study also showed that sign language is an appropriatemedium of communication for chimpanzees.

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Furthermore, the study did suggest that more could be accomplished Washoes abilityto spontaneously transfer the use of signs from specific things to general ones and herability to combine two or three words both suggest that significantly more could beaccomplished in further phases of this project.

One of the challenges was to develop a reliable way of demonstrating that Washoe was usinglanguage in a meaningful way. The Gardners suggested that one way to do this would be toplace an object in a box with a window. A researcher who did not know what the object wascould ask Washoe to say what it was. However, this would only work for objects small enought fit inside a box, and could not work for abstract concepts such as emotions and descriptions.

The Gardners did do this successfully in later work.

4 . EVALUATING THE METHODOLOGY (pg 115)Method:

The method used here was a case study. What are the strengths and weaknesses of using this method in this study . This case study also involved some aspects of observations. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this?

Reliability : Could this study be replicated ? Explain fully. A sign would only be recorded as learned if Washoe produced it spontaneously and

appropriately on 15 consecutive days. What does this suggest about reliability ? The Gardners also used inter-observer reliability by only recoding a sign if it was

noted by three separate observers. What does this suggest about reliability ?Validity :

The record of Washoes achievements was made by people who knew her (hercompanions) and spent a great deal of time with her. What is an advantage of this?

However, as all of Washoes companions knew the aim of the study, could there havebeen observer bias ? Could the observers be completely objective in their recording?

Can we be certain that Washoe had genuinely learned language, or was she justresponding to cues from her trainers?

Could it be argued that Washoes language can be easier be explained byconditioning ?

The Gardners and others have conducted further research with chimps and other apes(see next section). What can conclude about the validity of Washoes language bylooking at other studies? (This could also be used for reliability).

Sampling: In this study, there was only one participant. Can we generalise to all chimpanzees

from Washoe? Could she have been unique? This experiment only used one chimpanzee. Can we generalise to other animals, or

even other apes?

Ethical issues: Washoe was kept in good conditions, and was treated well by the Gardners. However,

she was a wild-born chimpanzee. Were the researchers justified in taking her fromthe wild for the purpose of this experiment?

It has been argued ( Dawkins 1990 ) that animal experimentation may be justified if the goal is to alleviate human suffering, but not just with the aim of intellectualcuriosity. With this in mind, how ethical is this study?

Part of the modern BPS (British Psychological Society) guidelines on animalexperimentation, is that animals should be kept in surroundings which mirror theirnatural environment as much as possible. Did the Gardners adhere to this?

Are there any other ethical issues?

5. C RITICALLY ASSESS WITH REFERENCE TO ALTERNATIVE EVIDENCE

More research with Washoe and friends

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One of the conclusions from this study was that while Washoe had learned30 words, the Gardners proposed that much more could be achieved withher. After the research reported in this core study, Washoe lived for another38years. When she died, her caretakers claimed she had a vocabulary of 250 signs , and reported any everyday conversations with her.

Gardner and Gardner (1989) went on to foster many morechimpanzees. Majo, Tatu and Dar were raised in a similar way toWashoe, although there were some improvements in theirmethod. First, the new chimpanzees were all newborns whenthey arrived. Second, their arrival was staggered so that theygrew up like siblings, providing company and role models foreach other, and making the environment more naturalistic.

Third, they recognised that operant conditioning had merelytaught the chimps to make requests and therefore aimed to uselanguage mainly as a means of dialogue, in the same way that human children enjoylanguage for its own sake, and not just as a means of getting what they want. All of themwere able to learn sign language, and communicated with each other in this way.

Gardner argues that evolution is a continuous process, which means there would be noreason to believe that there is a sudden jump in ability from one species to the next. It wouldbe reasonable to believe that our closest relatives have the capacity to develop language.

Washoe became pregnant several times through her life, butnone were successful. In the 1970s, she was given anadopted son Loulis . The researchers at the Chimpanzee andHuman Communication Institute (CHCI) decided that none of the staff would sign when Loulis was there except to use thekey seven signs ( who , which , want where , name , that andsign ). This meant that Loulis would only be able to acquirelanguage if it was taught to him by the other chimps.Remarkably, Loulis acquired more than 50 signs just bywatching the other chimps. This is exactly the same as howhuman children learn language.

Other apes

Terrace (1979) carried out a similar study on a chimpanzeenamed Nim Chimpsky. Terrace wanted to use more experimentaltactics than that used with Washoe. Nim learned 125 differentsigns and was able to put them together in combinations. Terracerecorded more than 20,000 communications from Nim during a twoyear period. However, when he examined the data, he found asignificant difference between Nims communication and childlanguage. He concluded that Nim was not using the equivalent of human language.

Savage-Rumbaugh et al (1986) demonstratedhow two bonobo chimps, Kanzi and Mulika to couldproduce language from the use of lexigrams.

These are visual symbols which stand for words.

The humans who worked with the chimps carriedlexigram panels (like the one here) with them sothat the chimps could indicate what they wishedto say. Kanzi first learned to use lexigramsthrough interactions with his mother Matata.Neither Kanzi nor Mulika were directly taught how

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to use lexigrams. It appeared that they acquired knowledge through an interest incommutating with their human companions. By the age of 17 months, Kanzi was able toproduce 2500 non-imitative combinations. This was fewer that Nim, but unlike Nim, all of Kanzis communications were other-focused i.e. Not just about himself and were more oftenabout games and food. Savage-Rumbaugh compared this to the language development of two common chimps and proposed that some chimps may have a greater tendency forlearning language than others.

Other evidence

For the last 30 years, computers have been able to simulate conversation. Inthe 1960s, a computer program called ELIZA was able to respond to ausers input and respond as if it were a psychotherapist. Boden (1977)found that even expert judges were not always able to tell the differencebetween the responses given by Eliza and those of a real therapist. . (Youcan have a go yourself at http://www.manifestation.com/neurotoys/eliza.php3 ).

What is the significance of this research? What does it suggest aboutGardner and Gardner?

Use three colours to highlight research that supports, contradicts, or develops Gardenerand Gardners research.

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http://www.manifestation.com/neurotoys/eliza.php3http://www.manifestation.com/neurotoys/eliza.php3

Documents

Additional Notes Gardner and Gardner (1969)