Ape Language Research Research Articles

Человек и обезьяна: к контекстуализации ранних экспериментов в области Ape Language Research

Человек и обезьяна: к контекстуализации ранних экспериментов в области Ape Language Research

Duane M. Rumbaugh (1929-2017).

Presents an obituary of Duane M. Rumbaugh (1929-2017). Rumbaugh was an experimental psychologist known for his many contributions toward understanding primate learning and behavior. His ape-language research with Lana and other chimpanzees, comparative studies of quantitative and qualitative hallmarks of primate intelligence, and numerous methodological innovations helped usher in the field of comparative cognition. Rumbaugh's scientific legacy is extensive. The computerized language keyboard invented for the Lana Project would subsequently be employed to teach other nonhuman primates, as well as humans with intellectual challenges to communicate. (PsycINFO Database Record

Apes in conversation: The role of the human interlocutor

Ape Language Research has primarily focused on formal linguistic abilities of apes, rather than on the cultural and pragmatic aspects of language found in socio-communicative interactions. Studies with humans exhibiting non-standard language abilities, such as autistic children, have shown that the interlocutor play a constitutive role in enabling communication with these individuals. This contrasts with a general view in primatology that human influence may lead to unjustified anthropomorphism. Through an analysis of conversations between symbolically competent bonobos and humans using the concept of conversational implicature, it will be shown that the assumptions made by the interlocutor are crucial in establishing communicative intersubjectivity. The communicative exchange takes the form of a more distributed activity, a feature also exhibited by non-standard human language subjects.

Some other kind of being: Human nature and animal subjects in ape language research

When asked to describe herself, Koko the nonhuman primate replied in sign-language that she was indeed a ‘fine animal gorilla’. One of several nonhuman primates that have been undergoing language training since the 1970s, Koko’s ability to grasp the fundaments of human expression have caused both fascination and derision in popular and scientific cultures. Yet visions of the language-using ape have not been simply a phenomenon of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Early natural history and Enlightenment philosophy make curious reference to the possibility of communicating apes. So similar to the human and yet existing in the terrain of animality, it was believed by some that the ape held a latent capacity for perfectibility — for emerging out of the mute world of the animal into the terrain of the human. An historically liminal entity, the great ape has been cast in both scientific literature and popular culture in various ways as a ‘pre-human’, a species that may be capable of becoming, through a training in the civilized manners and language of the world, fully human. In this sense, striking similarities can be found between the representation of nonhuman primates in contemporary ape language projects and historical discourses linking human childhood with a state of animality.

Human Uniqueness in the Age of Ape Language Research

AbstractThis paper summarizes the debate on human uniqueness launched by Charles Darwin’s publication of The Origin of Species in 1859. In the progress of this debate, Noam Chomsky’s introduction of the Language-Acquisition Device (LAD) in the mid-1960s marked a turn to the machine model of mind that seeks human uniqueness in uniquely human components of neural circuitry. A subsequent divergence from the machine model can be traced in the short history of ape language research (ALR). In the past fifty years, the focus of ALR has shifted from the search for behavioral evidence of syntax in the minds of individual apes to participant-observation of coregulated interactions between humans and nonhuman apes. Rejecting the computational machine model of mind, the laboratory methodologies of ALR scientists Tetsuro Matsuzawa and Sue Savage-Rumbaugh represent a worldview coherent with Darwin’s continuity hypothesis.

Error, Error-Statistics and Self-Directed Anticipative Learning

Error is protean, ubiquitous and crucial in scientific process. In this paper it is argued that understanding scientific process requires what is currently absent: an adaptable, context-sensitive functional role for error in science that naturally harnesses error identification and avoidance to positive, success-driven, science. This paper develops a new account of scientific process of this sort, error and success driving Self-Directed Anticipative Learning (SDAL) cycling, using a recent re-analysis of ape-language research as test example. The example shows the limitations of other accounts of error, in particular Mayo’s (Error and the growth of experimental knowledge, 1996) error-statistical approach, and SDAL cycling shows how they can be fruitfully contextualised.

Aspects of Repetition in Bonobo–Human Conversation: Creating Cohesion in a Conversation Between Species

Ape language research has primarily focused on specific isolated language features. In contrast, in research into human language, traditions such as conversational analysis and discourse analysis propose to study language as actual discourse. Consequently, repetitions are seen as accomplishing various discursive and pragmatic functions in human conversations, while in apes, repetitions are seen as rote imitations and as proof that apes do not exhibit language. Tools from discourse analysis are applied in this study to a conversation between a language-competent bonobo, Pan paniscus and a human. The hypothesis is that the bonobo may exhibit even larger linguistic competency in ordinary conversation than in controlled experimental settings. Despite her limited productive means, the bonobo Panbanisha competently engages in co-constructing the conversational turns. She uses shared knowledge and repetitions to achieve compliance with a request. This reveals a knowledge about socio-linguistic interactions which goes beyond the pure informational content of words.

Applying Self-Directed Anticipative Learning to Science II: Learning How to Learn Across a Revolution in Early Ape Language Research

The purpose of this paper and its sister paper I (Farrell and Hooker, a) is to present, evaluate and elaborate a proposed new model for the process of scientific development: self-directed anticipative learning. The vehicle for its evaluation is a new analysis of a well-known historical episode: the development of ape language research. Paper I examined the basic features of SDAL in relation to the early history of ape-language research. In this second paper we examine the reconceptualization of ape-language research following what many conceived to be Terrace's refutation of ape-language. We show that the apparent ‘revolution’ in our understanding of ape linguistic capacities was not based upon ‘revolutionary’ research different in kind from ‘normal’ research. The same processes of self-directed interactive exploration of possibility space, that enables a homing-in upon both error and success, is present in all phases of productive science. Moreover, conceiving science as an SDAL process explains how sci...

Applying Self-Directed Anticipative Learning to Science I: Agency, Error, and the Interactive Exploration of Possibility Space in Early Ape-Language Research.

The purpose of this paper and its sister paper (Farrell and Hooker, b) is to present, evaluate and elaborate a proposed new model for the process of scientific development: self-directed anticipative learning (SDAL). The vehicle for its evaluation is a new analysis of a well-known historical episode: the development of ape-language research. In this first paper we outline five prominent features of SDAL that will need to be realized in applying SDAL to science: 1) interactive exploration of possibility space; 2) self-directedness; 3) localization of success and error; 4) Synergistic increase in learning capacity; and 5) continuity of SDAL process across scientific change. In this paper we examine the first three features of SDAL in relation to the early history of ape-language research. We show that this history is readily explicated as a self-directed, ever-finer, delineation of possibility space that enables the localization of both success and error. Paper II examines the last two features against this history.

Rational versus anti-rational interpretations of science: an ape-language case-study

Robert Nola (2003) has argued that anti-rationalist interpretations of science fail to adequately explain the process of science, since objective reasons can be causal factors in belief formation. While I agree with Nola that objective reasons can be a cause of belief, in this paper I present a version of the strong programme in the sociology of knowledge, the Interests Thesis, and argue that the Interests Thesis provides a plausible explanation of an episode in the history of ape-language research. Specifically, I examine Terrace, Petitto, Sandess, & Bever (1979, 1980) illegitimate comparison of the signing of their chimpanzee, Nim, with data from human early childhood language development, and argue that Terrace et al.’s interests played a causal role in determining their sceptical beliefs concerning ape linguistic abilities. However, I go on to argue that Terrace et al.’s interests are not the only causal factors in determining their beliefs: objective reasons, associated with the institution of new methodologies, were also causally determinative of Terrace et al.’s sceptical beliefs. Consequently, I argue that belief formation in science is a multi-factorial affair wherein both interests and objective reasons have causal roles. I finish the paper with two conjectures concerning the proper locus of scientific rationality.

The emergence of a new paradigm in ape language research

In recent years we have seen a dramatic shift, in several different areas of communication studies, from an information-theoretic to a dynamic systems paradigm. In an information processing system, communication, whether between cells, mammals, apes, or humans, is said to occur when one organism encodes information into a signal that is transmitted to another organism that decodes the signal. In a dynamic system, all of the elements are continuously interacting with and changing in respect to one another, and an aggregate pattern emerges from this mutual co-action. Whereas the information-processing paradigm looks at communication as a linear, binary sequence of events, the dynamic systems paradigm looks at the relation between behaviors and how the whole configuration changes over time. One of the most dramatic examples of the significance of shifting from an information processing to a dynamic systems paradigm can be found in the debate over the interpretation of recent advances in ape language research (ALR). To some extent, many of the early ALR studies reinforced the stereotype that animal communication is functional and stimulus bound, precisely because they were based on an information-processing paradigm that promoted a static model of communicative development. But Savage-Rumbaugh's recent results with bonobos has introduced an entirely new dimension into this debate. Shifting the terms of the discussion from an information-processing to a dynamic systems paradigm not only highlights the striking differences between Savage-Rumbaugh's research and earlier ALR studies, but further, it sheds illuminating light on the factors that underpin the development of communication skills in great apes and humans, and the relationship between communicative development and the development of language.

Information processing and dynamical systems approaches are complementary

Shanker & King (S&K) trumpet the adoption of a “new paradigm” in communication studies, exemplified by ape language research. Though cautiously sympathetic, I maintain that their argument relies on a false dichotomy between “information” and “dynamical systems” theory, and that the resulting confusion prevents them from recognizing the main chance their line of thinking suggests.

Language evolution in apes and autonomous agents

Computational approaches based on autonomous agents share with new ape language research the same principles of dynamical system paradigms. A recent model for the evolution of symbolization and language in autonomous agents is briefly described in order to highlight the similarities between these two methodologies. The additional benefits of autonomous agent modeling in the field of language origin research are highlighted.

The emergence of a new paradigm in ape language research: Beyond interactionism

We group the issues raised in the commentaries into five major sections. In the first, section R1, we consider some of the antecedents to dynamic systems (DS) in psychology, biology, anthropology, and primatology and note the key changes that have occurred in DS over the past ten years. Next, in section R2, we explain the ways in which co-regulation differs markedly from interactional synchrony, focusing in particular on the creation of meaning inherent in co-regulated communication. The following section (R3) clarifies the challenge that DS poses to Cartesian assumptions about the nature of communication and contrasts this position with behaviorism. In the next section (R4) we reject the notion that IP and DS may be, in fact, compatible paradigms. Finally, we explain the exciting future we envision for using DS to facilitate consideration of evolutionary questions, particularly those concerning the comparative evolutionary development of socio-emotional dynamics between partners (section R5).

Human expression and experience: What does it mean to have language?

We support Shanker & King's (S&K's) proposal for a dynamic systems approach in ape language research, but question their vision of what it means to have language. Language plays an essential role in the making of the human mind. It underlies any kind of human interaction and codetermines perception and action. Moreover, what gives human thought the very characteristic architecture of textuality criterially requires a third party.

What ape language research means for representations

Shanker & King (S&K) rightly stress that recent ape language research has important implications for language development and origins. But the evidence does not warrant their conclusion that we can dispense with representations. Indeed, their own discussion of the nature of communication highlights the central role that representations must play in our models of communicative competence, in and out of language.

Ethnography should replace experimentation

This paper points to the need in ape language research to shift from experimentation to ethnography. We cannot determine what goes on inside the head of an ape when it communicates with a human being, but we can learn about the nature and content of the communication that occurs in such face-to-face interaction. This information is fundamental for establishing a baseline for the abilities of an ape-human common ancestor.

A new paradigm?

Shanker & King argue for a shift in the focus of ape language research from an emphasis on information processing to a dynamic systems approach. We differ from these authors in our understanding of how this “new paradigm” emerged and in our perceptions of its limitations. We see information processing and dynamic systems as complementary approaches in the study of communication.

Does the new paradigm in ape-language research ape behaviorism?

Although Shanker & King (S&K) disregard the behavioral paradigm, their arguments are reminiscent of those in Skinner's Verbal Behavior (1957). Like S&K, Skinner maintained that communication is not appropriately characterized as the transmission of information between individuals. In contrast to the paradigm advocated by S&K, however, the behavioral paradigm emphasizes prediction and control as important scientific goals.

Putting apes (body and language) together again

It is argued that the account of Savage-Rumbaugh's ape language research in Savage-Rumbaugh, Shanker and Taylor (1998. Apes, Language and the Human Mind. Oxford University Press, Oxford) is profitably read in the terms of the theoretical perspective developed in Clark (1997. Being There, Putting Brain, Body and World Together Again. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA). The former work details some striking results concerning chimpanzee and bonobo subjects, trained to make use of keyboards containing ‘lexigram’ symbols. The authors, though, make heavy going of a critique of what they take to be standard approaches to understanding language and cognition in animals, and fail to offer a worthwhile theoretical position from which to make sense of their own data. It is suggested that the achievements of Savage-Rumbaugh's non-human subjects suggest that language ability need not be explained by reference to specialised brain capacities. The contribution made by Clark's work is to show the range of ways in which cognition exploits bodily and environmental resources. This model of ‘distributed’ cognition helps makes sense of the lexigram activity of Savage-Rumbaugh's subjects, and points to a re-evaluation of the language behaviour of humans.