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Language in Primates

Language in Primates. Do our closest evolutionary relatives have the ability to learn and use language? If so, then the differences between our respective species may be less than we have previously believed. Chimpanzees (Washoe, Loulis, Nim) Bonobos (Kanzi and Matata) Gorillas (Koko).

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Language in Primates

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  1. Language in Primates • Do our closest evolutionary relatives have the ability to learn and use language? • If so, then the differences between our respective species may be less than we have previously believed. • Chimpanzees (Washoe, Loulis, Nim) • Bonobos (Kanzi and Matata) • Gorillas (Koko)

  2. Chimps: Washoe • Adopted by Drs. Beatrix and Allen Gardner • Studied by Drs. Roger & Deborah Fouts since 1980 • First chimp to be taught ASL • Was able to learn about 200 signs and combine them 2 or 3 at a time • Taught signs to her adopted son Loulis

  3. Chimps: Nim Chimpsky • Taught ASL by Herbert Terrace. • Skeptical of reports about Washoe • Was able to teach Nim numerous signs • Never saw evidence that Nim could combine signs except when promted to do so by experimenters • Nim died last year

  4. Bonobos: Kanzi • Studied by Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh • Was present when his mother (Matata) was being taught to use lexigrams • Though Matata didn’t learn, Kanzi did • Spontaneously learned and combined many lexigrams • Shows evidence for comprehending word order

  5. Bonobos: Is Kanzi typical? • In a word, no. • Though other bonobos have learned some lexigrams, only one other has done so to the degree of Kanzi. (His mother learned 6 lexigrams in 5 years, his sibling learned about 15 in 3 years). • Was it because Kanzi is somehow unique, or were the conditions of his rearing unique? • Probably the latter. Learned the symbols through natural exposure rather than rigid training. • Best evidence for language acuqisition in non-humans to this date

  6. Gorillas: Koko • Dr. Francine Patterson taught Koko ASL • Knows several hundred signs and combines them • Uses signs for emotion (e.g. Sad kitten gone) • Chats on the internet (no, really)

  7. Would Koko like to have a kitten, a dog, or another Gorilla as a friend? • LiveKOKO:dog • DrPPatrsn:She actually has two dog friends right now one kitty and two gorillas. • HaloMyBaby:SBM87 asks, What are the names of your kittens? (and dogs?) • LiveKOKO:foot • DrPPatrsn:Foot isn't the name of your kitty • HaloMyBaby:Koko, what's the name of your cat? • LiveKOKO:no • Koko tell us what you look like in your words? • LiveKOKO:flower • DrPPatrsn:One of the scrunchies has a big flower on it. • LiveKOKO:eat now • DrPPatrsn:She wants some more of the snack, apparently. • LiveKOKO:sleep, red red • DrPPatrsn:She's indicating the red scrunchie.

  8. How about computers? • Many attempts to get computational systems to learn language a la the child • Most have used some sort of connectionist, or parallel distributed processing, network to accomplish this feat (artificial neural networks) • Try to model various aspects of language acquisition • Vocabulary learning (Elman) • Acquisition of the past tense (Rumelhart & McClelland)

  9. Rumelhart & McClelland (1986, 1996) • Past-tense learning • Works on phonological pattern recognition and prior experience with regular and irregular verbs • Attempts to generalize rules and apply them to novel stems the system has never encountered before (just like a child)

  10. How does it do? • Correctly generalizes to about 70% of unfamiliar word stems • Makes many errors of types that children never make • mailmembled • winkwok • satisfysedderded • smairfsprurice • frilgfreezled • smeejleefloag

  11. What to conclude • Pinker and others take these sorts of results as proof that a general AI learning system could not learn language • Others see these as good approximations of what actually occurs, and simply that the model and/or parameters and/or the input needs to be specified differently • Will we ever have a language learning machine? • Nick Lacey’s gonna tell us

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