[percy-l] Fw: talking chimp astounds scientists

Mike Frentz mfrentz at bbn.com
Fri Jan 3 17:01:01 EST 2003


Karey,

Interesting.  BTW, Deacon describes Kanzi as "who more than any other 
nonhuman has demonstrated the extent to which language comprehension 
abilities are possible...will probably not progress beyond the symbolic 
sophistication exhibited by a three-year-old human child (though he 
still has many more years to prove me pessimistic)" (p. 254, written 
~1997). Kanzi is interesting because he was not the subject of teaching 
-- his foster mother was -- but Kanzi hung around (on!) her the whole 
time she was being trained and wound up becoming the unintended star 
pupil (presumably because of his immaturity).

An indexical relationship to words is not particularly significant -- 
Kanzi has done rudimentary symbolic processing with a visual lexigram 
system for years.  The voicing of them is interesting (it is also 
interesting that Kanzi is at least 10 now). [Deacon also refers to 
"Hoover the talking harbor seal" (p. 226) who only started talking 
around puberty -- with a seemingly similar set of phrases and accent of 
the old Maine fisherman who adopted Hoover years before when he was an 
orphaned pup.  Hoover was fond of saying such things as "Hoova", "Hey 
you", "Get outa there", and "yadda yadda yadda" (maybe he watched 
Seinfeld a bit too much ;-).  He lived in the Boston Aquarium for years. 
 The only known talking seal  (I'm not making this up..)  Songbirds are 
apparently similar in learning the dealect version of their species song 
when they are nestlings, but only start singing when they approach 
puberty.]  

The fact that the voicings of the words doesn't seem to correlate in any 
way to the human voicing (as seemingly implied in the article) is also 
interesting. But, as partially disclaimed in the article, probably not 
symbolically relevant.  Language is symbolic or it isn't really 
language, I believe.  It's the fact that the words form stable 
relationships to other words, independent of their indexical origins 
(sense, not reference), that yields the triadic nature that makes them 
fungible for general usage.


Mike



Karey L. Perkins wrote:

> Here' s another interesting development on animal language research 
> (below) -- however, the last two paragraphs of the article provide a 
> disclaimer for what comes before.  BTW, this also illustrates the idea 
> Wade mentioned earlier that, ""researchers" are largely asking 
> themselves the questions and answering the questions for themselves."
>  
> As someone said earlier -- I think for this conversation to be most 
> effective, we need to define our terms:  consciousness vs. awareness, 
> sign vs. symbol, symbolic communication vs. any other kind of 
> communication, etc. etc.  Even what is meant by "soul."  Percy even 
> uses these terms differently from other linguists and even Pierce (is 
> my understanding), and even Percy uses these terms differently in his 
> own writing at some points, if I remember reading correctly.  And 
> also, whether or not these things are mutually exclusive -- Why does 
> lack of symbolization have to equal lack of consciousness?  Why did 
> Percy think that?  That's the crux of the matter right there, I 
> think.  Does it have to with what happens in the organism, the third 
> part of the triad?  What does happen?  Percy doesn't say.
>  
> I'm wondering if his argument is circular as well.   I.E.:  the logic 
> might be provable to those already holding to Percy's basic premise, 
> but if you don't start out believing man is a being with a soul, (or 
> other assumptions Percy begins with), the argument just won't work.
>  
> I haven't made any decisions yet, just asking questions right now.
>  
> Karey
>  
>  
>  
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: ken denney <mailto:kdenney at mindspring.com>
> To: karey at charter.net <mailto:karey at charter.net>
> Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2003 9:09 PM
> Subject: talking chimp astounds scientists
>
> >From The Guardian in UK:
>
> University chimp amazes scientists with own 'words'
> By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent
> (Filed: 02/01/2003)
>
> A chimpanzee has challenged the widely held view that animals do not have
> language by making up its own words from scratch.
>
> Kanzi, an adult bonobo or pygmy chimpanzee kept at Georgia State 
> University,
> Atlanta, has come up with four distinct sounds for the things closest 
> to his
> heart - banana, juice, grapes and yes.
>
> Although the choice of words may be a little predictable, it is the first
> report of an ape making sounds that seem to have the same meaning across
> different situations.
>
> The findings have astonished ape experts, who believe Kanzi has come the
> closest yet to mastering a simple form of speech.
>
> Kanzi has grown up among people and is skilled at communicating with
> symbols. It understands some spoken English and can respond to simple
> phrases such as "do you want a banana?", New Scientist reports today.
>
> But its language trainers, Jared Taglialatela and Sue Savage-Rumbaugh,
> discovered that he also made distinct noises during their "conversations".
> The team studied 100 hours of video tapes of Kanzi. They were most
> interested in situations where the chimp's meaning was obvious, such 
> as when
> it was pointing to the symbol for grapes or eating a banana. The 
> researchers
> found four noises used by Kanzi in different contexts.
>
> Dr Taglialatela said: "We haven't taught him this. He's doing it all 
> on his
> own."
>
> Kanzi's "word" for yes stayed the same across a whole range of emotions,
> suggesting that the noises were not simply the result of differences 
> in the
> chimp's emotional state.
>
> Kanzi is the latest in a line of primates to challenge the 
> conventional view
> that animals have no language. Language used to be defined as symbolic
> communication until another chimpanzee, Washoe, learned to communicate in
> American Sign Language. Since then, the definition has been refined to put
> more emphasis on syntax and less on symbols.
>
> The researchers are now trying to discover whether Kanzi is imitating 
> human
> speech. But they will not consider the chimp to be communicating using the
> sounds until other chimps respond to the noises.
>
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20030103/1ba2e553/attachment.html>


More information about the Percy-L mailing list