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> They showed extended, unedited clips of koko fumbling and just brute forcing a whole series of signs until she got a treat. ...what do you think human childr
by musingsole 5y ago
> They showed extended, unedited clips of koko fumbling and just brute forcing a whole series of signs until she got a treat.
...what do you think human children are doing for the first ~4 years of their life?
Also, different learning methods are used by the subject depending on their mood -- most importantly frustration -- and other context. Brute force learning tends to be the last stage before they're so frustrated they give up or become aggressive. It's also a common exploratory tactic.
Teaching human sign language over a variant organically developed by the subject and team would have what advantage, exactly? It may be nominally more interesting to know a gorilla could adopt a purely human communication system -- very interesting. But it's also such a corner case of studying communication and particularly interspecies communication that to call it out as a problem is nothing more useful than a nitpick.
We're coming from an age where all animals were by default assumed to be a sort of squishy -- sometimes tasty -- automaton. We have a long way to go in unlearning that particular arrogance. Assuming that intelligence can only be demonstrated in the purely human terms you seem to be looking for is just another vestige of that same arrogance.
- taeric 5y agoI think you are grossly underestimating how well kids can pick up sign language. Two year olds can easily pick up some basic sign use.
- musingsole 5y agoOk...2 instead of 4. I think you are grossly missing the point.
- taeric 5y agoApologies, I went fast on my post. My point was to tighten your numbers to strengthen your point. As it is, I feel lied to when folks say that it takes kids 4 or more years to get language.
- caddemon 5y agoHow does that strengthen his point? Koko stumbled around frequently, well after the learning period was advertised as done. Kids stumble around less than was claimed, as you mention.
- taeric 5y agoI didn't say it makes it a strong point. But deceitful numbers greatly weaken it. That is, with how off the idea that 4 year old can't take language is, I didn't make it to the argument. And I am sympathetic to the idea that animals can pick up on language.
- musingsole 5y agoThe time window of learning ISN'T THE POINT. You're asking an animal to internalize a system of communication quite literally designed from the ground up for different hardware. It's like asking why does my Oculus headset take so long to communicate over ZigBee. What would be magical is that it did it at all. Lamenting how long it took to bend the Oculus hardware into some contorted SDR would be stupid.
- taeric 5y agoMy point is you shouldn't fudge auxiliary data in making a point. I don't know if I can believe your actual argument due to that. Consider, my dog can fumble around trying to make me happy with really good emotional understanding of my reactions and basic mimicry. I wouldn't claim that is a usage of language, though. From the counters here, there is an argument that if my dog was dextrous with his arms and hands, he could pass off similar results.
- caddemon 5y agoI'm not lamenting how long it took, I'm lamenting that the claims were exaggerated to begin with, because Koko never stopped stumbling like that.