pinqy
Gold Member
No, I don't think that's a particularly deep conversation, especially not seeing the actual symbols used. I can't tell what Kanzi actually indicated and what was interpolated. No real use of grammar is required, on the words "I," "man," and "bite."Criticism of ape language claims: Aping Language a skeptical analysis of the evidence for nonhuman primate languageKanzi has exhibited advanced linguistic aptitude.
Kanzi, language-reared male bonobo, converses with Sue Savage-Rumbaugh in 2006 using a portable "keyboard" of arbitrary symbols that Kanzi associates with words.
Kanzi has learned hundreds of arbitrary symbols representing words, objects, and familiar people (including the generic "Visitor").
Although Kanzi learned to communicate using a keyboard with lexigrams, Kanzi also picked up some American Sign Language from watching videos of Koko the gorilla, who communicates using sign language to her keeper Penny Patterson; Savage-Rumbaugh did not realize Kanzi could sign until he signed "You, Gorilla, Question" to anthropologist Dawn Prince-Hughes, who had previously worked closely with gorillas. Based on trials performed at Yerkes Primate Research Center, Kanzi was able to correctly identify symbols 89-95% of the time.
"For a start Kanzi — like [Nim Chomsky] before him — did not show the increase in sentence length that is typical of children learning language. In fact, at 1.15 symbols per sentence, Kanzi’s average utterance is even shorter than Nim’s. And it turns out that to complete many of the requests that were put to him Kanzi did not need to understand grammar. For example when Kanzi was asked to “Take the hat to the colony room” — which Kanzi did successfully — all he needed was some sense of “hat” and of “colony room.”14 A hat may be taken to a colony room, but a room cannot be brought to a hat. Successful completion of this instruction suggests an understanding of some vocabulary, but it is not in itself proof of grammatical comprehension. To test grammar what are needed are pairs of reversible commands like: “Dog bites man” and “Man bites dog.” Just knowing those three words — man, bites, and dog — is not enough to comprehend the difference between these two statements. For that difference to be understood grammar is crucial.
Of the 660 commands that Kanzi was given, a mere 21 formed pairs of the “man bites dog” “dog bites man” variety that constitute a critical test of grammatical comprehension. Savage-Rumbaugh and her colleagues reported that Kanzi responded accurately to 12 of these 21 pairs — a modest 57% correct. On closer inspection, however, it became clear to me that their method of coding Kanzi’s responses was unreasonably generous. To take one example: They commanded Kanzi, “Pour the juice in the egg.” Kanzi proceeded to pick up the bowl with the egg in it, sniff it, and shake it. They repeated the command three times — each time changing the wording slightly — before Kanzi did what they asked him to. They nonetheless scored his response as correct. When they asked Kanzi to “Pour some water on the raisins,” he held a jug of water over a lettuce. This was coded as correct. Kanzi’s first reaction to the request to pour milk into water was to stick a tomato in the water. When asked to chase Liz he remained seated; when asked again he touched Liz’s leg and she chased him. All of these were scored correct. When Kanzi was given the two commands, “Make the [toy] doggie bite the [toy] snake” and “Make the snake bite the doggie,” in both cases the snake ended up in the dog’s mouth but both responses were coded as correct. Re-scored to exclude these false positives, Kanzi achieves less than 30% correct."
Similarly, I've looked at the studies of Koko, and while she certainly does use ASL, she requires her handler to translate what she really means. If she truly understood language, anyone who understood ASL should be able to freely communicate with her.
Did you hear about Kanzi
Kanzi the bonobo can recognize several hundred words. He can communicate in complex ways using sign language, even ordering dinner or arguing with his trainer. , he can order dinner, and he might even be able to physically speak in English.
Ape Bites Human’s Finger Off, Then LITERALLY Apologizes
He told his handler to bite a guy who upset him. The trainer said no. Bonzi said, "if you don't I'll bite you". The trainer said I'm not going to bite the man. So Bonzi bit his fingers off. For months Bonzi wanted to see the trainer but the trainer insisted that he apologize. Bonzi told the others he would not apologize but he wanted to see him. He didn't feel he was wrong. He warned him. So months went by and finally Bonzi told the other handlers he was ready to apologize. The reunion was very emotional.
This is pretty deep conversation coming from a bonobo don't you think? What more do you want? If we can understand them and they use, that's communication.
might even be able to physically speak in English.
I find it interesting how you didn't address the criticisms of Kanzi's abilities. From what I have read, in all cases of ape-human language studies, there is a great deal of "interpretation" on the part of the study team. I am not aware of any significant communication between an ape and a human who has had no previous contact with the ape. If I or anyone off the street could walk in a successfully communicate with Kanzi or if anyone who knew ASL could communicate with Koko...one-on-one without anyone else present, then I might change my mind. I am not aware of any such attempts, though, so it is not clear that these communications much more sophisticated than Hans, the mathematical horse.