Educating Sarah Training with Symbols

_NATURE_v_oL_.30J_2J_JVNE_I98J______ BQQK REVIEWS----------~733 without having had the benefit of the early Educating Sarah training with symbols. The reader may wish to carp, however. Richard Passingham Has it not turned out that some of the early claims for language learning in chimpan The Mind of an Ape. By David Premack and Ann James Premack. zees were inflated? Perhaps there are W. W. Norton: 1983. Pp.165. $14.95. alternative and rather less interesting explanations of Sarah's performance. Perhaps some of the explanations can be COMPARATIVE psychology has proved a But there is more to this account than a translated into the stultifying jargon of be dull science. Its efforts have been directed simple listing of achievements. Earlier in haviourism. mainly to the rank ordering of vertebrate her life, Sarah was drilled in the use of a It is worth haggling over these questions species according to their ability to learn. system of visual signs. Could it be that her because for once there is something worth To this end a restricted number of tests later successes were promoted by this haggling about. Of course there are alter have been applied, none of which greatly previous training in a symbolic system? natives and Premack frequently mentions taxes the mind of an intelligent animal such Not in the sense that she solved the them and tries to rule them out. But this as a chimpanzee. problems by mentally operating with these is a small book and does not give the detail The history of the subject has been symbols, since she lacked symbols for that is needed to allay the sceptic's fears. enlivened by two minds. In 1917 Kohler many of the essential operations. But, The Mind of an Ape is nonetheless full of pointed out that there was little point in David Premack argues, perhaps the earlier imaginative questions and ingenious seeking evidence for insight if the tests were training taught her to look for abstract experiments. If children have their Piaget, of the sort that could be solved only by rote relationships. And indeed there is evidence chimpanzees have their Premack. D trial and error. And in 1949 Harlow for this, since three other chimpanzees suggested that rather than killing animals were also taught the symbolic system and Richard Passingham is University Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Oxford, and after a single experiment, it would be of four other chimpanzees, now juvenile, are authorofThe Human Primate (W.H. Freeman, interest to study them over a long time to being tested on the logical problems 1982). see to what extent they benefited from a general education. In recent times David Premack has make 1974 this community was shocked, perhaps the subject very much more interesting. He Power and politics more than anything at its own naive com has taken note of Harlow's suggestion and placency. Amongst many other responses has trained a chimpanzee, Sarah, for three John Chesshire were the creation of the ''London suppliers to four hours a day, five days a week for club" in 1975 and a hardening of US policy over ten years. Also, he has heeded World Nuclear Energy: Toward a evidenced in the Nuclear Non Kohler's insistence that it is more im Bargain of Confidence. Proliferation Act of 1978. Further, at the portant to know whether an ape under Edited by Ian Smart. same time the economic ground of nuclear stands the nature of a problem than Johns Hopkins University Press: 1983. power was shifting. The oil "crisis" of whether it can be drilled to produce the Pp.394. $30, £22. 1973 had led to huge increases in planned right answer. For each type of problem nuclear generating capacity, an unseemly Sarah is first taught the answers for a EISENHOWER'S "Atoms for Peace" scramble for uranium supplies and calls for training series and then tested for her declaration of December 1953 heralded a greater expenditure to support the rapid understanding on a new set of problems period of impressive and largely un development of fast reactor and fusion that are formally similar. If she can give the troubled nuclear cooperation, offering technologies. But the late 1970s witnessed correct answer on the first trial of such assistance in the development of peaceful reduced forecasts of economic growth and problems she must have an intelligent uses of atomic energy in exchange for the electricity demand, lengthening construc understanding. promise that such assistance would not be tion lead times, cost escalation, patchy What are Sarah's achievements? This diverted for military purposes. Verifi plant operating performance and the book summarizes in popular form some cation was to be undertaken through a incident at Three Mile Island. Both the years of work by David Premack and his system of safeguards enforced by an diplomatic and economic bargains were in associates (Woodruff, Gillan and others), inspectorate, a principle that was enshrined doubt. much of which has already been reported in in the creation of the International Atomic These looming uncertainties were impor the technical literature. In Chapter 2 they Energy Agency in 1959. The emerging tant factors leading to the formation of the claim that Sarah can master the abstract bargain of confidence was taken a sig International Consultative Group on idea of similarity, recognizing that two nificant stage further with the Non Nuclear Energy (ICGNE) in 1977, under bananas are like two apples rather than an Proliferation Treaty of 1968. the co-sponsorship of the Rockefeller apple and a banana. And they report that By the early 1970s, therefore, not only Foundation and the Royal Institute of Sarah can also draw simple analogies; thus was an international framework for International Affairs. Almost contem tin opener is to can as key is to lock. nuclear power development evolving satis poraneously, the International Nuclear Chapter 3 describes Sarah's efforts to factorily, but an increasing number of Fuel Cycle Evaluation (INFCE) exercise supply the correct solution to problems countries had embarked on sizeable was launched to undertake an essentially that she sees people tackling on the nuclear power programmes and few had technical assessment of the relationships television screen. It is argued that her mastered more sensitive technologies such between civil nuclear power and nuclear ability to produce the correct solutions as enrichment and reprocessing. Thus the weapons proliferation. suggests that she understands the problems period between 1953 and 1973 can now be In contrast to the large-scale and official the people are facing and their goals or viewed as the golden era of cooperation - intergovernmental nature of INFCE, the intentions. The next chapter looks at her although, with hindsight, optimism within ICGNE group comprised some twenty understanding of her physical world; does the nuclear community probably led to a individuals only, meeting privately and in she appreciate that events have causes or glossing over of incipient tensions and an their personal capacities. As such, its that matter can be conserved in amount underestimation of the fragility of inter deliberations were far less inhibited, from one physical transformation to national nuclear diplomacy. ranging over many of the vexed inter another? When India exploded a nuclear device in national, political and economic issues © 1983 Nature Publishing Group.

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