Gorillas That Have Been Taught Sign Language

Factual Questions
1

I’m curious as to how gorillas (and chimpanzees) who have been taught sign language respond in the presence of others of their own species. Do they try to communicate with them in sign language? I’m sure simians are quite capable of communicating with each other without the benefit of sign language, but I’d like to know if Koko has ever given it a shot.

Also, has anyone ever put two sign-language-using gorillas (or chimpanzees) in the same environment to see if they communicate with each other? What would they talk about? Food sources? The Sicilian Defense? Kierkegaard?

2

IIRC, they tried that experiment. The chimps main communication pretty much ran along the lines of “The food is over there behind that rock” but they didn’t have what we would call deep discussions. They also placed non-signing chimps with signing chimps to see if the ones in the know would teach those who didn’t. As I understand it, the ability decreased when chimps taught one another. Chimp A would teach chimp B signing, but chimp B showed less ability than chimp A. Chimp B taught chimp C some signs as well, but chimp C’s vocabulary was far less than chimp A’s. They theorized that the signing would eventually “die out” if the chimps were left to their own devices in teaching one another, because chimps naturally do not use signing as a form of communication. Signing in chimps is somewhat of a novelty, in the same way that learning the Macarena is to humans.

Koko has been the greatest sucess story in signing. She actually has been seen (by remote video surveilance) signing to herself when alone, much as a human will talk to themselves. She has also mastered the ability of communicating her emotions, but, of course, some deny that animals even HAVE emotions to begin with. But that is another debate altogether. She has the language comprehensibility of about a three or four year old human child. IIRC, she taught her baby to sign, but with less success than she had shown.

3

Altho, there is no doubt that some of the Great Apes can learn A sign, doubts emerge when we talk about expressing themselves in sentences, or coherant thoughts. Koko, for isntance, I have read, can really only be fully understood by her trainers, and ASL experts have said much of Koko’s signing is “gibberish”.

So, yes, a Chimp can sign for "bannana’, and he knows that means “bannana” and maybe he will get one. But can he really say “I love bannanas, they are my favorite food”? My guess is somewhere in between, depending on the Chimp.

4

Daniel is right on a couple of points. The finer language skills, such as sentance structure and syntax are lost on Koko. Much as they are on a three-year-old, I might add. She is not easily understood by those not familiar with her way of communicating.

However, one Koko story in particular seems to demonstrate her ability to understand and express her emotions. One of her trainers had a miscarraige in late term pregnancy. When she returned, Koko, upset at what appeared to be her trainer’s neglect, refused to speak to her. Finally, the trainer signed that she was sorry, but she had been gone because her baby had died. Koko took her hand, looked into the trainer’s eyes, and signed, “I cry.” She then groomed the trainer, which is the ape way of expressing sympathy.

Koko’s internet “chat” was probably the worst publicity that the simian-signing project could have gotten. Possibly confused by the concept, Koko’s replies to questions asked by chatters came out sounding incoherent. “Me bananna apple want,” was a typical response.

Remember that signing is a very foreign way for a chimp to communicate, especially in a species where expressing oneself in words is completely unheard of. That Koko can say something to the effect of “I don’t want an orange, I want an apple,” or asking to play with a certain person, or even expressing sympathy is remarkable in itself. She IS communicating, albeit on a very limited basis.

5

Another story I heard some time ago (I don’t know if it was Koko or not) was of a gorilla who had been taught sign language and was taken away from her trainers and placed in a zoo. Later, her trainers came to the zoo to visit, and the gorilla signed, “Please help. Out.”

6

Koko has had a live-in boyfriend, Ndume, for about ten years now. They get along well, although the one male/one female group they’re in feels alien to both and the Gorilla Institute would like to add another female to make them more at ease and receptive to mating (Michael, the male signer, lives one cage over alone). So, they respond as well as can be expected.

This program also said that a gesture system of sorts has been found in ordinary gorillas, and showed a few pictures without going into detail. If this is true, Koko and Ndume should have had little problem beyond adjusting to their different systems.

Don’t know about chimps. Sorry.

7

There have been several experiments with primates and sign language. All of them have been severely criticized for various reasons.

n.b.- all of the following info is from a linguistics course that I just took.

One of the first attempts at getting a primate to produce human language was actually involving a chimp- they tried to make the chimp say simple words in the hopes of teaching him language. The problem with this is that primates aren’t built for speech as we know it; their articulators (i.e., the basic shape of their mouth) are too different from humans. The chimp was eventually able to make three or four words that were recognizable… if you gave it the benefit of the doubt.

Most attempts at communication afterwards were then contained to sign language.

A better known project involved a chimp who was taken in to the household of a husband and wife science team, the Gardners. They tried to teach it sign language. The Gardners had many assistants and took a lot of video footage, which you might be able to find with a bit of digging. One of the problems with this chimp is that there were questions raised as to what exactly a sign was- that is, the chimp would move it’s hands in a way vaugely approaching a sign, and would then get what it wanted. Linguistics who have reviewed their work say that there is no conclusive data to be drawn.

Another chimp project involved putting a chimp in a cage with a computer. The computer was similar to a device used by some who are incapable of speech- that is, it had buttons with pictures on them. The chimp would press the buttons and, if done in the correct order, it would get the desired result- be it food or what have you. This one was criticized for the artificial construct. There were only certain ways that the chimp could arrange the buttons, so there was no variation for freedom in language.

Koko… well, what everybody else said.

The basic problem with primates and language is that they simply do not mimic the human response to learning language. A child learning a language will increase their vocabulary exponentially, while primates plateau quickly. Primates also don’t do many of the things that have been suggested to be innate in human language- free variation, expiramentation, knowledge of how to structure things.

Lissa is right about the sign teaching chains- if left to their own devices, primates will not spread sign language. It’s just not in their nature, I suppose.

8

I have always had a problem with the concept of a primate learning something as complex as abstract reasoning, ie: a language.
Their form of communication is grounded in instinct, so why would their brains innately, biologically, have the necessary synaptic doorways to develop something they would not need for survival?

I think the major results found in these animal studies are just along the line of any captive creature trying to curry favour with a master by simple pavlovian/survivalist gestures. And this great push to anthropomorphize just gets in the way of good science.

Not for a millisecond to i think any living thing does not possess a rudementary language: communication is an essential survival mechanism. But the mistake is laterally applying the level of sophistication that man has achieved in his communication to any other species. It’s just apples and oranges.

9

growth comes from necessity. If it’s not immediately helpful for the gorillas to learn signing, then as a species, why would they? They may have the ability to learn when taught, but when teaching the others, why would the teacher or student be pushed to carry out the lesson properly?

10

I was fortunate enough to have had Dr. Fouts for a Psych class in college. Fascinating stuff.

The most impressive display of language skills was the forming of new terms out of existing ones. When given an onion for the first time, the primate had no sign for it. It signed “Cry Food”.

11

It may have been bad publicity, but it is still data and it should not be rejected (not that anyone in this thread has done so). A number of years ago the SF Examiner/Chronicle published an article about Koko in their Sunday magazine. They included an unedited transcript of a “conversation” with Koko. Most of it was incoherent or non sequiturs, a lot like your description of the Internet chat. One might say the data shows a lot of misses which are not publicized and a few hits which are. Sounds something like the track record of alleged psychic phenomena.

I’m not saying that it is impossible for Koko to hold an extended, coherent conversation. I am saying the evidence for it seems less than compelling.

12

Very interesting feedback! I don’t know how many of you saw the GD thread about languages this past week or so but this point was touched upon for a few posts. Thanks, rastahomie!

13

I think we need to consider why a gorilla would even want to hold an extended conversation. It’s just not something gorillas do, and if there is no obvious reward, why should one hold human-like conversations?

Let’s think about what language is used for in humans.

  1. Communicating emotions. Most animals have some pretty effective body language for this already.

  2. Conveying information. We assume that this is the main purpose of speech, but frankly, I doubt it; I think it’s more #3 (below). Koko has already mastered this to an extent–“I want a banana”; “The bananas are over there.” Not much different from a band of hunters saying, “you go left. I’ll go right. We’ll catch the deer in the middle,” or something. Or even “drive this truckload of lightbulbs to Boise.” But she doesn’t need anything more, b/c she can’t identify with (IMHO) one of the main reasons for human speech:

  3. Social interaction. Humankind’s version of gorilla “grooming” is called conversation. How much of our chats have anything to do with conveying information? It’s mostly about increasing social cohesion and bonding–talking to a pretty girl at the bar, or to a bunch of guys about baseball. Koko has no need for this. She grooms other gorillas. That’s how they bond. So it seems unlikely to me that gorillas would ever want, be capable of, or even grasp the reason why they should hold extended conversations.

14

Clever Hans was a horse who could could count.

Well, not really. He did it by watching his master’s body language.

Monkeys and gorillas are even smarter. They can tell you want you want to hear.

But can they communicate on a human level?

I doubt it. Many of the studies purporting this have beeen discredited.

I have no cites, but I know that they lack Broca’s Area, which is the seat of language in humans.
This is where syntax and grammar are located.

“I want bannana” is the same as pointing to one. And if there isn’t one present, so what? Many animals remember things.

If I say “walk”, my dogs goes nuts.

15

What about Alex? He creates new names for things, counts, understands classification (including/excluding by category, assigning to category, etc. - including that a single object falls into more than one category), and conducts (simple) conversations. He’s also helping teach younger parrots to speak.

This paper is 5 years old; didn’t have time to find newer info at the moment.

Discuss amongst yourselves. :wink:

16

I saw video of a chimp who had been taught to sign. This was some years ago, but FWIW -

What I saw was an ape who made a whole bunch of gestures almost at random until the trainer gave her a banana or some reward. It was pretty clear that the trainer was picking out what he believed were the meaningful signs from an extensive background of ‘noise’ signing, and that the ape was not interested in communicating as an end in itself, but to get the reward. The anecdotes of appropriate signing, where the chimp gave the impression of insight and truly understanding what she was signing, looked to me to be simple coincidence. The chimp signed a lot and in a wide variety of situations. By random chance (almost) she was bound to say something that gave the impression of insight, especially with an audience who was avid for evidence that she had really learned to talk.

I am not aware of any instance where a chimp or other great ape was able to show unambiguously that he was communicating some idea to the trainer or anyone else that was not obvious from the context, and that therefore could have been projection by the trainer. People tend to see what they are looking at.

An interesting experiment, but as an example of how close humans are to other primates, the difference between normal human language and what chimps and gorillas can be trained to do remains qualitative and not just quantitative.

I have some experience in learning languages (French, German, Greek) and in training animals, but I am neither a trained linguist nor a primatologist. Your mileage may vary.

17

You’re welcome! :wink: bows

18

Unlike most people, I actually know sign language. I have seen Koko sign with her trainer & it’s hard to imagine you’d call those real signs. More like clues. Either that or Koko sure is sloppy in the sign language department.

I have also seen mentally retarded people sign better than Koko.

On the other hand, I do notice that when I teach Bi-Polar people sign language & talk with them in sign that it seems to access an area of their brain that is not effected by their Bi-Polarity, so their real self really shines through. This doesn’t always happen.