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1. LESSON 3
Experiments on
Languages and Animals
 VIKI
 WASHOE
 NIM
 CHANTEK
 KOKO
 KANZI

2. CHIMPANZEE
VIKI
Adopter: Keith and Catherine Hayes

3. Keith and Catherine Hayes
Viki was the subject of one of the first experiments in ape language.
Viki was raised by Keith and Catherine Hayes in the same manner as
a human infant, to see if she could learn human words. She was
given speech therapy, which involved the Hayeses (her adopters)
manipulating her lower jaw. Eventually, she was able to voice four
words:
● mama
● papa
● up
● cup

5. VIKI
● Viki, a chimpanzee, came closest to being a real talking ape. In the
late 1940s and early 1950s, Keith and Catherine Hayes of the Yerkes
Laboratories of Primate Biology, then located in Orange Park, Florida,
adopted Viki and raised her at home as if she were a human baby.
With the Hayeses moving her lips for her, Viki learned to utter
“mama.” Eventually, with much difficulty, she managed to say three
other words—papa, cup and up—on her own. Viki’s tenure as a
talking ape didn’t last long; she died at the age of seven of viral
meningitis

6. CHIMPANZEE
Washo
e

7. WASHOE
● Washoe (c. September 1965 – October 30, 2007) was a female
common chimpanzee who was the first non-human to learn to
communicate using American Sign Language (ASL) as part of an
animal research experiment on animal language acquisition.[1]

8. WASHOE
● In the 1960s, psychologists Allen and Beatrix Gardner of the
University of Nevada, Reno recognized that chimpanzees naturally
gesture a lot and thought chimps would be well suited for sign
language. In 1966, they started working with Washoe. Later,
psychologists Roger and Deborah Fouts, now retired from Central
Washington University, continued the work. By the end of Washoe’s
life in 2007, she knew about 250 signs and could put different signs
together to make simple combinations like “Gimmie Sweet” and “You
Me Go Out Hurry.” Washoe’s adopted son Loulis also learned to
sign—by watching his mother. He was the first ape to learn signs
from other apes, not humans.

9. Teaching method
● Washoe was raised in an environment as close as possible to that of a human
child, in an attempt to satisfy her psychological need for companionship.
● While with Washoe, the Gardners and Foutses were careful to communicate
only in ASL with Washoe, rather than using vocal communication, on the
assumption that this would create a less confusing learning environment for
Washoe. This technique was said to resemble that used when teaching
human children language.[16]
● After the first couple of years of the language project, the Gardners and Roger
Fouts discovered that Washoe could pick up ASL gestures without direct
instruction, but instead by observing humans around her who were signing
amongst themselves. For example, the scientists signed "toothbrush" to each
other while they brushed their teeth near he

11. CHIMPANZEE
NIM

12. NIM
● After the success with Washoe, psychologist Herbert Terrace of Columbia
University decided to replicate the project. At first, Nim—full name Nim
Chimpsky, named after linguist Noam Chomsky who thought language was
unique to humans—was raised in a human household. (Washoe had been
treated like a person too but had her own trailer.) Later, Nim was removed
from the family and his language lessons moved to a lab on Columbia’s
campus. In the end, Terrace concluded Nim never really learned language; he
had merely been trained to imitate his teachers to get rewards. The sad story
of Nim’s life after the project ended is told in the new documentary Project Nim

13. NIM
● Project Nim was an attempt to go further than Project Washoe. Terrace and
his colleagues aimed to use more thorough experimental techniques, and the
intellectual discipline of the experimental analysis of behavior, so that the
linguistic abilities of the apes could be put on a more secure footing.
● Roger Fouts wrote:
● Since 98.7% of the DNA in humans and chimps is identical, some scientists
(but not Noam Chomsky) believed that a chimpanzee raised in a human
family, and using American Sign Language (ASL), would shed light on the way
language is acquired and used by humans. Project Nim, headed by behavioral
psychologist Herbert Terrace at Columbia University, was conceived in the
early 1970s as a challenge to Chomsky's thesis that only humans have
language.[3]

14. Chantek
Orangutan
was a male hybrid Sumatran/Bornean
orangutan taught by American
anthropologists Lyn Miles and Ann
Southcombe. In Malay and Indonesian, cantik
(pronounced chanteek) means "lovely" or
"beautiful".

15. ● Chimpanzees are not the only talking apes. In 1978, anthropologist
Lyn Miles of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga began
studying an orangutan named Chantek. During eight years of study,
Chantek learned 150 signs. He also showed signs of being self-
aware: he could recognize himself in a mirror. Today, you can visit
Chantek at Zoo Atlanta, his home since 1997.
● Chantek had a vocabulary of around 150 modified ASL signs, and he
also understood spoken English.

16. Chantek
● Born at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Chantek was transferred to the University of
Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) when he was nine months old..
● Chantek was raised much as a human child yet also had time to be an orangutan. Ann toilet trained
Chantek, much as she did Michael. He was given chores, like pick up his toys or sit for a signing test for
which he was given an allowance, using steel washers as money.[4]
● After years of service, she hired a full-time assistant to give Chantek all the benefits of early education.
As Miles taught anthropology at UTC, she also gathered a group of dedicated student volunteers to help
with the project, such as Warren Roberts, who now teaches anthropology classes at the college as of
Spring 2017.
● Chantek spent almost nine years living under constant supervision in a specially adapted trailer on the
UTC campus.[3] He went to classes regularly and was so beloved by the academic community that his
photo was included in the school yearbooks.

17. ● On August 7, 2017, Chantek died of heart disease at the age of 39.

18. KOKO
Gorilla

19. ● Hanabiko "Koko" (July 4, 1971 – June 19, 2018) was a female western lowland gorilla.
Koko was born in San Francisco Zoo,[2] and lived most of her life at The Gorilla
Foundation's preserve in the Santa Cruz Mountains.[3] The name "Hanabiko" (花火子),
lit. 'fireworks child', is of Japanese origin and is a reference to her date of birth, the Fourth
of July. Koko gained public attention upon a report of her having adopted a kitten as a pet
and naming him "All Ball", which the public perceived as her ability to rhyme.[4]
● reported that Koko had an active vocabulary of more than 1,000 signs of what Patterson
calls "Gorilla Sign Language" (GSL).[5][6] This puts Koko's vocabulary at the same level
as a three-year-old human.[7] In contrast to other experiments attempting to teach sign
language to non-human primates, Patterson simultaneously exposed Koko to spoken
English from an early age. It was reported that Koko understood approximately 2,000
words of spoken English, in addition to the signs.

20. Koko
● Koko the gorilla is probably best known for her love of kittens and Mr.
Rogers. Koko’s sign-language training began in 1972 with then-
graduate student Francine (Penny) Patterson of Stanford University.
According to the Gorilla Foundation, Koko knows 1,000 signs and
understands spoken English. It also claims the gorilla has an IQ
somewhere between 70 and 95 (the average human IQ is 100).
(Critics, however, remain skeptical about some of Koko’s supposed
abilities due to the lack of recent scientific publications supporting the
claims.

21. Kanzi
BONOBO
21

22. Kanzi
● Kanzi, a bonobo, doesn’t use sign language; he uses different combinations of
lexigrams, or symbols, to communicate. In the early 1980s, psychologist Sue
Savage-Rumbaugh, then of Georgia State University, was trying to teach
Kanzi’s mom, Matata, to use the lexigrams; instead, Kanzi was the one who
mastered the symbols. Kanzi understands spoken English and knows close to
400 symbols. When he “speaks,” his lexigram usage follows rules of grammar
and syntax, according to researchers at the Great Ape Trust in Iowa, where
Kanzi now resides. Kanzi is also an accomplished stone-tool maker.

23. LEXIGRAM
a symbol representing a word, especially one used in learning a
language.