From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!utzoo!dciem!mmt Tue Nov 19 11:09:10 EST 1991
Article 1215 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!utzoo!dciem!mmt
>From: mmt@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Animal Intelligence vs Human Intelligence
Message-ID: <4952@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca>
Date: 6 Nov 91 22:35:34 GMT
References: <37658@shamash.cdc.com> <1991Nov02.075827.27740kmc@netcom.COM> <37713@shamash.cdc.com>
Organization: Defence and Civil Institute of Environmental Medicine
Lines: 43


Lots of comment about Washoe (the chimpanzee) and her whether her signing can
be considered language.  Lets think about the following (quoted from
my wife's "Psycholinguistics: Learning and Using Language" Prentice Hall 1990,
page 278):

-Like a human child, a signing chimpanzee interacts more with his peers than
-with his mother as he grow older.  Loulis is the adopted son of the celebrated
-Washoe, who was taught ASL (American Sign Language)...In his first 4 years,
-about 90 percent of Loulis's communication was with his mother, Washoe,
-WHO TAUGHT HIM SIGNING [emphasis mine].  When he reached age 5, however,
-Loulis began to spend most of his time with his best buddy, named Dar.  And
-Loulis's use of ASL signs shot up from an average of 37 a month when he was with
-his mother to 378 when with Dar (Fouts, 1985)

The reference is: Fouts, Fouts, and Schoenfeld, Sign language conversational
interaction between chimpanzees, Sign Language Studies, 42, 1-12, 1984.  (I
don't know whether there is a date error in the citation or the reference,
or whether Fouts 1985 was inadvertently omitted from the bibliography and
this is not the intended reference, but the title sounds right.  I haven't
read it myself.)

The same reference is given for another parallel between human and chimanzee
children learning language.  Children learn to answer "who" questions and to
ask them a year or so after "what" questions and:

-At age 1:6, one signing chimp, Tatu, answered "who" questions correctly only
-30% of the time, whereas she answered "what" questions correctly 75% of the
-time. At age 5:2, she could answer both types equally well.


I think it is only anthropocentrism that allows people to deny that chimpanzees
have some version of language capability, even though they seem not to have
a native language.  But it would be nice to know how Loulis and Dar
communicate now, 6 or 7 years later, and whether there are any more of their
age in a signing community.  Perhaps they might evolve a pidgin sign language!


-- 
Martin Taylor (mmt@ben.dciem.dnd.ca ...!uunet!dciem!mmt) (416) 635-2048
[An extract from "man more" on the Sun]
BUGS: Skipping backwards is too slow on large files.
I'll bet! (MMT)


