Editing Great ape language (section)

==1960s–1980s: Sign language==
=== Washoe and the Gardners ===
{{main|Washoe (chimpanzee)}}

In 1966, the husband-and-wife research team of [[Beatrix Tugendhut Gardner|Beatrix T. Gardner]] and Robert Allen Gardner initiated a new generation of language research. After the failed efforts of teaching apes to speak, the Gardners wondered whether the issue was a motor deficiency rather than cognitive inability. The couple had been watching film of [[Viki (chimpanzee)|Viki]], the chimp involved in the early speech study, and noticed that she was intelligible without sound; she was making gestures with her hands as she tried to pronounce words.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Linden |first=Eugene |title=Apes, Men, and Language: How teaching chimpanzees to "talk" alters man's notion of his place in nature |date=1974 |publisher=Saturday Review Press/E.P. Dunton |isbn=0841503435 |location=New York |pages=15}}</ref> The Gardners decided to test a chimpanzee's abilities with a gestural language, [[American Sign Language]] (ASL). They were not the first scientists to come up with this idea. [[Samuel Pepys|Pepys]] advocated teaching sign language to chimps in the 17th century; [[Julien Offray de La Mettrie|de la Mettrie]] and [[James Burnett, Lord Monboddo|Monboddo]] suggested the same in the 18th; and [[Wilhelm Wundt|William Wundt]] in the early 20th century.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Herzfeld |first=Chris |title=The Great Apes: A Short History |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2017 |isbn=9780300221374 |edition=English translation from the original French |location=New Haven and London |pages=141}}</ref> But the Gardners were the first to conduct formal research into the matter.

The Gardners secured a 10-month-old chimpanzee they named [[Washoe (chimpanzee)|Washoe]] in June 1966.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Meet the Family – Washoe's Biography |url=http://www.friendsofwashoe.org/washoe_bio.shtml |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080509121454/http://www.friendsofwashoe.org/washoe_bio.shtml |archive-date=9 May 2008 |access-date=2008-02-21 |publisher=Friends of Washoe}}</ref> Up to age 5, Washoe lived in a trailer in the backyard of the Gardner's home in [[Reno, Nevada|Reno]], Nevada. The Gardners hired graduate students to work with Washoe, most notably [[Roger Fouts]], who later became Washoe's primary caregiver. No one around Washoe was allowed to speak; instead, they were instructed to use signs from [[American Sign Language]] (ASL) exclusively. Washoe's primary caregivers were not fluent in ASL. The Gardners employed native ASL speakers on subsequent chimp projects.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Lindon |first=Eugene |title=Silent Partners: The Legacy of the Ape Language Experiments |date=1986 |publisher=Times Books |isbn=081291239X |location=New York and Toronto |pages=18}}</ref>

The Gardners tried to anticipate criticism of their work from the start. A word would not be counted as part of Washoe's vocabulary until she had used it appropriately and spontaneously at least once a day for 15 consecutive days. ([[Francine Patterson|Penny Patterson]] used this framework for her studies with gorilla [[Koko (gorilla)|Koko]] as well, at least initially.<ref>Patterson (1981)</ref>) It proved to be a difficult benchmark to meet, especially when it came to the vocabulary involving things not typically encountered daily (horse, pipe, hankie).<ref name=":4" />

In addition, the Gardners set up a [[Blinded experiment|double-blind testing]] apparatus for Washoe and subsequent chimp language projects.<ref name=":3" /> The chimp was seated in front of a screen that was sheltered from human view. One person would flash random slides for the ape to see, another person (who could not see the slides) would record the ape's response, and a third person viewing from a [[one-way mirror]] in a separate room would independently record the chimp's response.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Linden |first=Eugene |title=Silent Partners: The Legacy of the Ape Language Experiments |date=1986 |publisher=Times Books |location=New York and Toronto |pages=19–20}}</ref> Two persons were employed to separately interpret Washoe because of the inherent ambiguity of reading an ape's signs: chimp hands and body are different than humans', and the meaning of ASL signs is shaped by their position and movement in space regarding one's body. When the two interpretations were found to match each other as well as the picture that had been shown, the sign was accepted as correct. Anything else was recorded as an error. (In his book, ''Next of Kin'', Roger Fouts wrote that he sometimes found the errors more illuminating than correct responses.)<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fouts |first=Roger |title=Next of Kin: What Chimpanzees Have Taught Me About Who We Are |date=1997 |publisher=William Morrow |isbn=068814862X |location=New York |pages=998–101}}</ref>

The double-blind testing apparatus was set up to avoid unconscious bias, particularly a [[Clever Hans]] effect,<ref name=":3" /> in which humans unwittingly tip off their animal subjects through body language, facial expressions, or other means.

Tests showed Washoe reliably used 85 signs singly and in combination with other words by her third year with the Gardners. (The number of reliable signs rose to 132 later.). According to Eugene Linden, an independent journalist who focused on ape language research, she asked questions and used negatives ("no" in combination with another word).<ref>Linden, E. (1986) p. 21</ref>

When Washoe was five, the Gardners arranged to send her to the [[University of Oklahoma]]'s Institute of Primate Studies in [[Norman, Oklahoma|Norman]], Oklahoma, with [[Roger Fouts]] and [[Deborah Fouts]]. The Gardners continued to conduct sign-language research on infant chimpanzees, using Moja, Pili, Tatu, and Dar in subsequent studies. With these later projects, the couple sought to improve on the methodology of Project Washoe by securing chimps immediately after birth, employing fluent ASL speakers, providing the chimps with chimp "siblings"; and iterating upon their language training techniques.<ref name=":3" /><ref>Fouts (1997), pp. 202–203.</ref>

===Washoe and Roger Fouts===
{{main|Roger Fouts}}

The Gardners were scientists schooled in [[behaviorism]]. Roger Fouts came to the chimp language studies as an animal lover pursuing a career in [[Child development]]. These differing backgrounds corresponded with differing approaches. The Gardners initially wanted Fouts and other grad students to strictly use methods of [[operant conditioning]] — rewards and punishment – to teach Washoe, but Fouts believed that teaching a language was not the same as teaching a lab rat tricks. He recalled: <blockquote>According to behaviorism, the combination of a hungry chimp and ready-to-dispense food should be the perfect opportunity for reinforcement and learning. But the hungrier Washoe was, the quicker her signing deteriorated into pure repetition and finally outright begging.<ref name=":5">Fouts, R. (1997), p 83.</ref></blockquote>Fouts believed that chimpanzees needed room to learn in manner similar to human children, on their own timeline. He considered direct instruction ineffective, as it was often met with resistance. The child, not the parent, drives the learning process, argued Fouts:<blockquote>If you try to impose a rigid discipline while teaching a child or a chimp, you are working against the boundless curiosity and need for relaxed play that make learning possible.<ref name=":5" /></blockquote>Though the Gardners instituted [[B. F. Skinner|Skinnerian]] protocols in Washoe's first year, they began to see advantages to Fouts' approach, acknowledging, "Young chimpanzees and young children have a limited tolerance for school."<ref name=":5" /> But the issue exposed a key tension behind Project Washoe and similar language research to follow. On one hand, researchers needed a strict, repetitive process with clinical double-blind testing for their work to be accepted as science. Without such rigor, the body of work became vulnerable to criticism. On the other hand, researchers need to recognize the apes' emotional needs or they faced a different suite of problems. The Gardners fit more comfortably in the first camp, focused on scientific rigor; Roger Fouts and his wife Deborah fit more in the latter, later becoming advocates for [[animal rights]] and welfare. But the tension proved unavoidable.

=== Nim Chimpsky ===
{{main|Nim Chimpsky}}

In 1973, [[Herbert S. Terrace]] of [[Columbia University]] set out to improve upon the [[Washoe (chimpanzee)|Washoe]] research using a chimp he named [[Nim Chimpsky]] (a pun on linguist [[Noam Chomsky]]). Over the course of Project Nim, the infant chimp was shuttled between locations and a revolving group of roughly 60 caregivers, mostly students and volunteers, few of whom were proficient in sign language.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Pepperberg |first=Irene R. |date=July 1, 2016 |title=Animal Language Studies: What Happened? |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-016-1101-y |journal=Psychonomic Bulletin & Review |volume=24 |issue=2017 |pages=181–185 |doi=10.3758/s13423-016-1101-y |pmid=27368639 |via=SpringerLink}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Marx |first=Jean L. |date=March 21, 1980 |title=Ape-Language Controversy Flares Up |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1683439 |journal=Science |volume=27 |issue=4437 |pages=1330–1333 |doi=10.1126/science.7355293 |jstor=1683439 |pmid=7355293 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Before he was 1 year old, Nim began fighting for dominance by biting his caregivers.<ref>Hess, E. (2008) p. 89. See also ''Project Nim'' (2011) documentary.</ref> The project was initially intended to last roughly 10 years.<ref>Hess, E. (2008) p. 75</ref> But after four years of research, Nim had become too difficult to manage and was returned to the Institute for Primate Studies in [[Oklahoma]].

Nim's chaotic upbringing, documented in Elizabeth Hess's biography ''Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human'', negatively impacted not only his behavior but his performance on language-related tasks. Even Terrace acknowledged this problem, noting that Nim's "emotional turmoil" was a "major obstacle" in his progress.<ref>Terrace, H. (1979) p. 221. See also Linden, E. (1986), pp. 71–72</ref>

After sending Nim back to Oklahoma, Terrace reviewed his data and concluded that Nim copied signs from his teachers to get a reward. Terrace argued that Nim did not initiate conversation or create sentences. Terrace said that he had not noticed this throughout the duration of the study but only upon reviewing video tape.<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal |last=Terrace |first=H.S. |date=November 23, 1979 |title=Can an Ape Create a Sentence? |url=http://petitto.gallaudet.edu/~petitto/archive/Science1979.pdf |journal=Science |volume=206 |issue=4421 |pages=891–902 |doi=10.1126/science.504995 |pmid=504995 |bibcode=1979Sci...206..891T |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120422052359/http://petitto.gallaudet.edu/~petitto/archive/Science1979.pdf |archive-date=22 April 2012 }}</ref> Terrace ultimately became a popularly cited critic of [[ape language]] studies.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Terrace |first=Herbert |title=Why Chimpanzees Can't Learn Language and Only Humans Can |date=2019 |publisher=Columbia University Press }}</ref>

=== Koko ===
{{main|Koko (gorilla)}}
In 1972, [[Francine Patterson|Francine "Penny" Patterson]], inspired by a lecture she attended by Allen and [[Beatrix Tugendhut Gardner|Beatrix Gardner]],<ref>Patterson and Linden (1981) p.7</ref> began a program to teach sign language to a lowlands gorilla named Koko. Unlike the Gardners, she did not limit her English speech around Koko. Koko  mastered approximately 1,000 signs<ref>{{Cite journal |date=June 29, 2018 |title=News at a glance |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26498408 |journal=Science |volume=360 |issue=6396 |pages=1380–1382|jstor=26498408 |last1=Servick |first1=Kelly |doi=10.1126/science.360.6396.1380 |pmid=29954956 |bibcode=2018Sci...360.1380. |url-access=subscription }}</ref> before her death in 2018. But her well-publicized achievements ignited significant controversy among scientists, who questioned whether she was truly using a "language"<ref>{{Cite news |last=Pullum |first=Geoffrey K. |date=June 27, 2018 |title=Koko Is Dead, but the Myth of Her Linguistic Skills Lives On |url=https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/koko-is-dead-but-the-myth-of-her-linguistic-skills-lives-on |archive-url=https://archive.today/20231211182257/https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/koko-is-dead-but-the-myth-of-her-linguistic-skills-lives-on#selection-2503.139-2511.208 |archive-date=December 11, 2023 |work=Chronicle.com}}</ref> or simply responding to Patterson's prompts. It is generally accepted that Koko did not demonstrate the use of [[syntax]] or [[grammar]], key characteristics of language.