Teaching+Sign+Language+to+a+Chimpanzee

__**Introduction**__
 * Tried to teach a female baby chimp, Washoe, American Sign Language.

__**The Chimpanzee as a Subject**__
 * Chimps are sociable and are able to form attachments to human beings.
 * The researchers believed that sociability was important in the development of language in humans.
 * Chimps have differently constructed vocal organs, which limit their range of noise/sound/word forming.
 * Chimps make noises when they are excited, but usually don't when they aren't disturbed.
 * Determined that trying to get a chimp to speak would be unfruitful--it had been tried before and the chimp only produced four "words" by the end of the experiment.
 * Chimps instinctively use hand communication frequently when in groups, and even more so when around humans.
 * Chimps have similar hand structures to humans, so American Sign Language was thought to be a more appropriate means of communication to teach than speech.

__**American Sign Language**__ __**Washoe**__
 * ASL is a manual language that uses fixed gestures and signs that correspond to words. Some signs are arbitrary, while others are iconic or representational. Fingerspelling is often used, especially amongst literate deaf; for the purposes of this study, it was not used as the symbols were too difficult for chimpanzees to produce. It has its own unique syntactic and semantic structure that differs from spoken language, which means translating it directly into oral language can lead to ambiguity. It also has dialects.
 * ASL is currently used by humans.
 * The researchers sought to reproduce the environment that children of deaf parents grow up in.
 * The hope was to compare Washoe's linguistic competency with that of young children acquiring ASL.
 * Many of the mistakes Washoe made are similar to those that children of deaf parents/deaf children make when acquiring the language.
 * In order not to miss any chimpanzee critical language acquisition period, the researchers obtained a wild-born newborn chimpanzee. She was between 8-14 months at the start of the study.
 * As chimpanzees are entirely dependent for the first two years, Washoe's first months were uneventful in terms of the study.

__**Labratory Conditions**__
 * Because they wanted to create what could be considered "conversation" amongst chimps, they made sure that certain conditions were maintained:
 * confinement was minimal, about the same as human infants
 * human companions were to be friends and playmates as well as providers and protectors
 * used many human companions so that at least one person was with Washoe during all her waking hours, which she seemed to adapt very well to
 * Companions MUST use ASL extensively in her presence, ASL was used almost exclusively except for occasional finger spelling
 * attempted to use combination of speaking and signing, but didn't want to create undesirable social stratification in that the misconception may develop that only big chimps talk and little chimps sign
 * However, it was not completely silent, claps and other sounds were made, but were required to be sounds that could be mimicked by a chimpanzee

__**Training Methods**__
 * 1) **__Imitation__** - Apes tendency to imitate is as remarkable for its specialization and limits as for its strength.Things which are seen tend to be imitated, not things that are heard, which is why it is unreasonable to expect them to talk, they don't imitate sounds so they won't imitate words.
 * 2) __**Babbling**__ - making up signs that were not taught by the instructor. The researchers encouraged babbling because it showed that Washoe was attempting to create new signs that were similar to the one's being taught. Also, the babbling was reinforced to the point where the researchers and Washoe developed a new sign that stood for the word "funny" by means of imitation and game playing.
 * 3) __**Instrumental Conditioning**__ (also known as Operant conditioning )- pairing a response with reinforcement. For example, Washoe loved being tickled and would position arms near the ribcage to imitate tickling (the response). The researchers took this gesture and shaped it into a sign meaning "more" by tickling Washoe and conditioning her to understand that making the sign "more" would get more tickling(the reinforcement). Eventually she was able to develop the sign "more" in situations other than tickling.

__**Results**__
 * 1) __**V****ocabular****y**__ - A sign was considered part of her vocabulary if it was observed separately by three researchers with no prompting or asking for her to sign it.
 * 2) __**Differentiation**__ - Her signs were sometimes modified or slightly different than true American Sign Language. She signed the sign for "flower" for all sorts of smells until she learned the sign for "smell."
 * 3) **__Transfer__** - For example, when taught the sign for "flower," she began to use the sign for flower when exposed to pictures of flowers, real flowers, and all types of flowers that she encountered. For example, if she heard a dog barking she might combine "listen" and "dog."
 * 4) __**Combinations**__ - as far as the researchers can tell, Washoe's early use of signs in strings was spontaneous. She was also taught to sign I/Me and You. By the end of the experiment she was able to string together small meaningful combinations that resembled "sentences." For example, "I tickle" or "You tickle."

__**Summary**__
 * In the experiment by Allen and Beatrice Gardner, they set out to teach a female chimpanzee between the ages of 8-10 months of age a form of human language
 * Reasoning that spoken language was an inappropriate medium, they chose American Sign Language as the form they would use.
 * In lab settings, the only communication was in ASL and the chimp known as Washoe was maximally exposed to the use by human beings.
 * Among training methods used, evidence that some signs the chimp acquired were by delayed imitation.
 * Several signs were also introduced by shaping and instrumental conditioning.
 * Washoe acquired more than 30 signs and could use them spontaneously and appropriately by the end of the 22nd month of the project. From the time she had 8-10 signs in her repertoire, she began to use them in strings of 2 or more. Some combinations have been imitative but many inventions on her own.
 * Washoe's accomplishments will probably be exceeded by another chimp because of the fact that conditions of training can be edited and optimized
 * In terms of eventual level of communication that a chimp might be able to attain, the most promising results have been spontaneous naming, spontaneous transfer to new referents and spontaneous combinations and re combinations of signs.

More Information: Fouts, Roger (1997). //Next of Kin: what chimpanzees have taught me about who we are//. William Morrow and Company. [|ISBN] [|068814862X]. This book is actually really interesting, and is basically a biography of Washoe written by a man who was with the project from the beginning.

A reactionary study that attempted and failed to reproduce the same results as Washoe was the Nim Chimpsky project: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nim_Chimpsky

A video of Washoe, showing her ability to use and produce syntax and novel combinations of ASL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eUy7q227DI