I did a search for previous discussion on this question in Great Debates and got a few hits but nothing that really got into the question. Some members feel she is just a really well trained gorilla doing what amounts to nifty tricks for treats and has no actual understanding of the language she is using. Of course the researchers who work with her would say differently and therein lies the debate.
For those who are not familiar with Koko she is a Western Lowland Gorilla who has been taught American Sign Language and has been studied for 20+ (30+?) years. You can find details on Koko at the webpage http://www.koko.org/ .
Rather than cross-posting (a no-no) you can read my thoughts on her at the end (as of this posting) of the linked thread above. Or skip it and just have at it as you like.
Well recently she was able to communicate that she had a toothache to her handlers, wasn’t she? I’ve always been a little skeptical, but if she can communicate to the degree that she can let them know that she’s in a specific kind of pain, I think that’s pretty damn cool in itself.
She and other primates have indeed learned a few “signs”, and understand how to use some of them to get what they want.
However, there is no underlying grammar, and the primates lose their “signing” ability if not continually drilled. No real language, no real learning.
The Koko researchers in particular are notoriously unforthcoming, and imho sloppy.
A good place to start if you’re interested in looking into scientific debunking of the monkey-language claims is Steven Pinker’s “The Language Instinct”.
I think I’d like to see an unedited transcript of all the hand signs she used in that particular conversation. I’ve seen (rare) unedited videos of her “talking” before, and it looks as if she throws out a bunch of random words until her handlers give her what she wants.
The apes who have learned signs really don’t get beyond: “eat, hurry, hurry, eat” which I think gives us a good glimpse into what they have to tell us. I’ve followed these experiments since the Washoe days, and I really, really wanted to believe that chimps and gorillas have some language ability. But the data tells us, no. Certainly some apes have learned to associate a certain sign with a certain object, and sometimes even an abstract concept (eg, “more”). But the gulf between ape “language ability” and human ability is simply too large to put them in the same category. A human child at age 2 1/2 would leave an ape in the dust in terms of his ability to communicate.
I’ve also seen scientific work showing that plenty of other animals (seals, parots, even chickens) can attain a similar level of communicative abliity as apes.
I have seen unedited videotape, not of Koko, but of another “talking ape” named Washoe.
What appeared to me to be happening was that the chimp made a whole bunch of signs, nearly at random, until she happened to hit on one that got her the reward. The researchers seemed to ignore all the “noise” signals and reported only the ones they thought were appropriate.
Some signs were used correctly. The ape sure as hell knew the sign for “more”. But it was communicating more on the level that a baby communicates that it is hungry or lonely. Not much by way of grammar or syntax, and no genuine insight into the animal’s “thinking” that you couldn’t get by ordinary observation. You couldn’t “talk” to the chimp in the sense that you can talk to a five-year-old human.
Maybe gorillas are better at language than chimps, but I doubt it.
Reading what Cecil wrote it seems his final comment about what would be a “fair test” is in order. Bottom line is we are talking about a gorilla and not a human. Hopefully no one will expect a gorilla to read Plato and write a novel before they are convinced. Certainly no other animal on the planet has the capacity for language human brains do. Short of some mad scientist/Dr. Moreau genetic tweaking a gorilla is still a gorilla and simply will not ever communicate as readily as humans do.
I agree with others that the pieces I have seen seem to suggest Koko makes meaningless signs and the handlers do sometimes seem to be generous in their interpretations of what they think Koko is trying to say. On the flipside, however, Koko does get a lot right. More than one would suspect if she truly had no clue and was just randomly tossing out things till she gets her bannana. Further, she seems to respond emotionally to some queries. I may be remembering wrong but I believe Koko talked about her capture when she was young and has expressed sadness at the death of her cat. This sort of response suggests she is understanding what is being told to her.
I admit I like the thought that Koko is talking so perhaps am biased but some of the doubts about her cannot be ignored either so I am close to the fence on this one (just a bit tipped over in favor of Koko).
One would think given the debate around Koko her trainers, if really believing Koko is doing what they say, would gather a group of scientists and hammer out a test for Koko all can agree upon and see where the chips fall. Koko is famous enough that I think it would not be a problem getting a group together willing to see this through.
From the internet chat transcript linked above I found this rather odd response (well…lots of odd responses from Koko but this is from her trainer).
Am I missing something or is “sounds like” a meaningless thing to say when someone is using sign language? If Koko does not know a word for people, presumably does not know what the spoken word “people” is where does Koko get sound like from?
The two examples that I remember best of her communication skills were:
“Give me the apple that is orange.” (She knew the color orange, but not the name of the fruit.)
One time when she had done something “bad,” she blamed it on someone else by signing something like “Susie did it.” It wasn’t the use of the signing so much that impressed me. It was the need to avoid blame.
Hoo boy. I gather the consensus (right now) is no, for a looooot of reasons linguistics and animal behaviorists and zoologists have been trying to sort out. It may be that she is able to communicate, on some level, but it doesn’t look at the moment as if she can communicate very well–if at all–in our human structure of language.
Is anyone else tempted to draw parallels between Koko’s conversations and the facilitated communication scam perpetrated on parents of autistic and severely handicapped children? The only thing missing is a sudden revelation that Koko was sexually abused as an infant.
I really don’t see a problem, unless there is a clear language/no language dichotomy (now theres a word I haven’t needed in a long time…). Lots of primates, especially your “social” apes like chimps, gorilla, etc., have a “vocabulary” of facial grimaces and so on, which “communicate” specific message as diverse as “back off!” and “wanna fuck?” A hand gesture is not so different from a facial gesture. Besides, a gorilla raised amongst humans would have such a capacity oriented towards humans, not other gorilla, its capacity for rudimentary “language” is not otherwise occupied.
So why not? If a chimp can stack boxes to get a banana, why shouldn’t a gorilla be able to train to use its grimace communication capacity with its fingers rather than with the face? And a particularly smart gorilla, like the gorilla my dreams, Koko, might be able to advance considerably beyond that.
I don’t know what’s more embarassing: the fact that her trainers have convinced themselves she really “talks” and thus liberally “translate” her gestures, or the fact that despite this, her conversation is more intelligent than the average Internet chatroom. As a human, I wish I was kidding.