Monday, December 3, 2007

Recent Studies

A number of studies have been done in which scientists have taught a chimpanzee to use lexigrams or American Sign Language. Unfortunately, the most recent of these studies are from the late 80’s. Considering the need for current research, I decided to look at other recent studies that look at the minds of chimpanzees. Although these new studies are not directly related to language, they still provide knowledge about the cognitive capabilities of chimpanzees and thus widen the possibility for symbolic language.

As mentioned previously, researchers have long accused chimpanzees of imitation in their displays of language. However, a 2003 study on social learning by Victoria Horner and Andrew Whiten (“Causal knowledge and imitation/emulation switching in chimpanzees”) revealed that children are more likely to imitate than chimpanzees. Horner and Whiten set up an experiment in which “a human demonstrator use[d] a tool to retrieve a reward from a puzzle-box.” In particular, the study makes note to distinguish between emulation, “a process whereby through watching a model, an observer learns about the results of actions, rather than details about the behaviors involved” and imitation, the act of “produc[ing] a recognizable (if not accurate) copy of the original behavior required to bring about the same result as the model.” The results showed that chimpanzees were more likely to emulate the actions of the human demonstrator. In contrast, children were more involved with direct imitation.

In “College Students Meet Match in Chimpanzee,” Malcolm Ritter discusses a study done this year that also looks at the cognitive capacity of chimpanzees. In this experiment, numbers were quickly flashed on the screen and then rapidly replaced by white squares. The job of the participants was to touch the squares in the proper order. The results showed that compared to Japanese college students, the chimpanzees showed better short-term memory. As Ritter points out, this new study “challenges the belief of many people, including many scientists, that ‘humans are superior to chimpanzees in all cognitive functions.’” The aforementioned studies make it a lot easier to believe that complex language in chimpanzees isn’t so ludicrous after all.

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