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Animal Communication 2020

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Animal Communication 2020 BY JOSEPH POULSHOCK, PHD Planet of the Apes ELEMENT 2 - ANIMAL COMMUNICATION ▸ Key Questions for self-quizzing before and after. Main ! Point ▸ What can VERVET MONKEYS do? • Caesar and the apes evolved. Now they Animals can communicate. They can use symbols or calls to ▸ What can KOKO the GORILLA do? fight with humans for control of the world. communicate with each other. When working with humans, ▸ What two acts of communication did LUCY do with they can learn to communicate with humans and use human sign language? It's never going to happen. Right? • language in surprising ways. ▸ What kind of animal is KANZI? What can KANZI do? • Animals are smarter than we think! ▸ How many words did Chaser learn? ▸ So what? Low resolution "fair use" image providing critical commentary on the film. Design Features Animals? N'kisi Parrots • Duality--二重性 N’kisi is an African Gray. Once upon a time, • Arbitrariness--恣意性 When seeing a picture of a person on • a lady went for a walk, • Talking birds seem to show the design feature of duality. and she met a parrot.... the phone N'kisi said "What cha doin' • • Displacement --転位 on the phone?" The parrot said, "@#$@ YOU!" • They can learn many words and phrases. • Stimulus Freedom --刺激反応自由 • When seeing a picture of flowers, N'kisi said, "That's a pic of flowers." • How do they do it? Grammar? Just chunks? • Creativity--創造性 • Aimee Morgana claims N'kisi knows 950 words. • Recursion --帰納 (反復) Image Wikipedia The Vervet Monkey The Vervet Monkey • Vervets have alarm calls for each enemy. Image Wikipedia Image Wikipedia Image Wikipedia • A “rraup” for eagles/hawks. • Specific calls for each predator. Can Monkeys Talk? • ワシ • Hawk! Run to the center of the tree. • A “chutter” for snakes. • Snake! Stand up and look. • ヘビ • Leopard! Go to the end of the branches. • A “chirp” for lions/leopards. • ライオン／ヒョウ Creative Commons photo by Rod Waddington Koko - Talking Gorilla Koko Lucy and Roger Fouts Lucy and Roger Fouts • Koko is a gorilla. He was taught sign. He • Fouts: WHAT THAT? learned *645 signs, with a working vocab Lucy: WHAT THAT? of 375. • • Fouts: IT NOT SUE. WHOSE THAT? Fouts: YOU KNOW. WHAT THAT? • EYE HAT (mask); • • Lucy: ROGER! Lucy: DIRTY DIRTY. • WHITE TIGER (zebra). • • Fouts: NO! NOT MINE. WHOSE? Fouts: WHOSE DIRTY DIRTY? • SORRY BITE SCRATCH (Why?) • • Lucy: LUCY DIRTY DIRTY. SORRY LUCY. BECAUSE MAD (Why mad?) DON’T • Lucy: SUE. This video is produced by Noé ONG. www.noe.org https://youtu.be/FVuNTiqHys0 KNOW. www.amzn.to/ www.amzn.to/ www.amzn.to/ www.amzn.to/ Lucy Kanzi Kanzi Kanzi is a Bonobo Chimp. He learned What 2 things are significant about this • • English as a baby. Why is the researcher wearing the mask? conversation? • On tests, Kanzi gets between 57% and What is special about Kanzi’s responses? Lucy lied. • • • 74% correct answers. Would you like to try this? Lucy apologized. • • • His answers are above chance. www.amzn.to/ Image Wikipedia Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Kanzi Photo by William H. Calvin, PhD Primates Border collies are the smartest dogs. Apes may be the • Primates are the most impressive of the non-human linguists. smartest animals with • They cannot make words from meaningless sounds (no duality). • But they use symbols in an arbitrary (but limited) way. language, but dogs are • They express somme creativity, structure, and displacement. our friends. Creative Commons photo by Tom Kelly Fox Sports Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed) Border Collies Chaser Chaser Chaser • In the third experiment, Rico learned 200+ Words • • Four experiments over 3 years with • In the second experiment, Chaser Chaser showed the ability to learn labels Chaser. • • But this is Chaser. • UNDERSTOOD THE DIFFERENCE for CATEGORIES. • How many words did Chaser learn? • In the first experiment, between names and commands. • She knew that “ball” referred to one GUESS! • Chaser learned the NAMES of 1022 • She could understand that “bring” is set of objects. • Chaser learned 1022 words. objects or toys. an action, and “cat” is a name. • “Toy” referred to another set of objects. Creative Commons photo by Pilley Bianchi Creative Commons photo by Pilley Bianchi Creative Commons photo by Pilley Bianchi Creative Commons photo by Pilley Bianchi Chaser So What? Conclusions Concluding Points In the fourth experiment, • • Compared to human language, animal Chaser GUESSED or INFERRED the communication is simple. • Some animals show minimal language Complex language is unique to humans. meaning of a new word. • • design features. Animals are clearly not innately • Uniqueness of human language For example, there are four toys in a programmed to learn language. • • No animal shows all the features. supports the idea of an innate room. • Which design feature is impossible for • Dogs don’t walk on two legs. grammar acquiring ability. Chaser knows “cat,” “dog,” and “mouse,” • • animals? Gorilla’s don’t speak words. Universal Grammar but not “pig.” • • Recursion. Talking Horse by Mark Knight (Creative Commons Attribution license reuse allowed) The top performers all received a lot If the researchers said, “Bring the pig,” • • • of human input. Chaser could do it. Image Wikipedia Image Wikipedia Creative Commons photo by Pilley Bianchi .
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