Language: What separates humans from other animals?

1. Language: What separates humans from other animals? • Other ‘unique’ human abilities have been found in other animals. • Tool use • Cooperation • Cultural transmission • Use of symbols • Theory of mind • So,canweteachlanguagetoanimals? • Attempts have been made with • Apes • Chimpanzees • Gorillas • Bonobos • Orangutans Dolphins Sea Lions Parrots Dogs

2. Language Learning in Animals Original goal: can animals learn language? How big is the gulf between human and animal? Kelloggs raised chimpanzee as a member of their family. Chimp learned to recognize more than 100 words. But chimps are not able to produce human speech sounds.

3. Language Learning in Animals Original goal: can animals learn language? How big is the gulf between human and animal? • Sign language • Chimp – Washoe (Gardners, Fouts) • Chimp - Nim Chimpsky (H. Terrace) • Gorilla - Koko (P. Patterson) • Lexigrams • Chimp - Sarah, others (Premacks) • Chimp - Lana, others (Rumbaughs) • Comprehension only • Dolphins (Herman) • Calif Sea Lion (Shusterman) • Speech • African Grey Parrot - Alex (Pepperberg)

4. Washoe Washoe was adopted by Drs. Beatrix and Allen Gardner in 1966. She was raised in their home as if she were a human child. Washoe was the first nonhuman to acquire a human language -- American Sign Language. Washoe moved with Roger and Deborah Fouts to the University of Oklahoma in 1970 and came with them to Central Washington University in 1980.

5. Nim Chimpsky (1973-2000) was a chimp named after linguist Noam Chomsky. He was raised like a human child in a study for Herb Terrace, and was one of the first chimps to be taught ASL. Although Nim did learn 125 signs, the study concluded that he hadn't acquired anything worthy of the name "language"; he had merely learned to imitate his trainer in appropriate contexts. Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxQap9AAPOs

6. Nim Chimpsky Study – Conclusions: • The study shows that apes can learn vocabularies of visual symbols • There is no evidence that they can combine such symbols to create new meanings • The function of symbols of an ape’s vocabulary appears to be not so much to identify things or to convey information, as it is to satisfy a demand to use the symbol in order to obtain some reward • Nim’s use of language differs fundamentally from that of a child • Nim learned many isolated symbols, but there was no unequivocal evidence he’d mastered conversational, semantic or syntactic organization of language.

7. “love” KoKo (Penny Patterson) Videostart at 6:30

8. Sarah (Premacks)

11. Lana Chimp – Lana born October 7, 1970 Her name was used as an acronym for the purpose of the first project, which was to produce a LANguage Analog of human language in a nonhuman primate. The Lana Project was established in 1971 by Duane Rumbaugh, and began with Lana.

12. Language learning – Lana Taught a system of communication using keyboard lexigrams (Yerkish). If Lana wanted a particular food or rewards, she had to ask computer to give it. (Ex: Please machine give apple. Please machine show slides.)

13. Language learning – Lana Taught a system of communication using keyboard lexigrams (Yerkish). If Lana wanted a particular food or rewards, she had to ask computer to give it. (Ex: Please machine give apple. Please machine show slides.)

14. Language learning in chimps & bonobos: Early summary of Rumbaughs’ work (1993) Learned a few hundred ‘lexigrams.’ Also could comprehend some spoken English as well as a 2.5 year old child.

15. Lana Kanzi.In 1979,Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, had started using bonobos in her studies. Bonobos were thought to be generally more intelligent than common chimps. Matata was the first bonobo to be used in these studies but she did not do well, perhaps because she had started language training at 10 years of age, probably too old for language acquisition. Her son Kanzi, however, was fascinated by the keyboard and spontaneously used it. On his first official day of language training, Kanzi astonished his trainers by knowing and using keys on the keyboard correctly to name items and to announce his intentions.

16. Lana After 17 months, Kanzi had a vocabulary of about 50 symbols and was regularly using combinations of words. Unlike some other apes, Kanzi's multi-word utterances seemed to reflect real comprehension and most were spontaneous. Savage-Rumbaugh also noted that many of Kanzi's communications functioned to suggest completely new actions and alternatives to the normal way of doing things. He also used 3-word utterances to indicate someone other than himself as the agent or recipient of an action such as tickle or chase. Savage-Rumbaugh also noted that Kanzi could understand human speech despite the fact that there had been no attempt to train him to understand spoken language.

17. Lana Kanzi understands spoken language Kanzi & novel sentences Kanzi the toolmaker Kanzi Rumbaughs

18. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz3sQsTE5tA Lou Herman Dolphins

19. Rocky the sea lion Ron Shusterman

20. Irene Pepperberg Alex

21. Alex the African Grey Parrot Irene Pepperberg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6KvPN_Wt8I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYk-wE18BTo

22. During speech acquisition, children form quick and rough hypotheses about the meaning of a new word after only a single exposure—a process dubbed “fast mapping.” Rico, a border collie, is able to fast map. Rico knew the labels of over 200 different items. He infers the names of novel items by exclusion learning and correctly retrieves those items right away and 4 weeks later. Kaminski et al., Science 2004 Betsy

23. Movie shows the very first session of the identification task, in which a novel item is requested by using a novel name. Rico is first instructed to bring two familiar items: 1st the "tyrex" (the blue dinosaur), then "weihnachtsmann" (the little red doll). Subsequently, a novel word ("sirikid") is used to ask for the novel item, the white bunny. Examples of names Rico knows: Banane, BigMac, Frau Seibert, Hund, Igel, Josep, Jumbo, Kamel, Kaninchen, Mond, Mr. Green, Nashorn, Oscar, Panda, Seahorse, Stern, Tiger, Waschbär, WDR Maus, Werwolf, Willi, Ziege, Zitrone. VideoKaminski et al., Science 2004

24. Language Learning in Animals Original goal: can animals learn language? How big is the gulf between human and animal? Present goal: to use language as a means to get to understand animal mind.