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Its worth noting that the idea that great apes have learnt sign language is largely a fabrication by a single person, and nobody has ever been able to replicate
by 20k 1y ago
Its worth noting that the idea that great apes have learnt sign language is largely a fabrication by a single person, and nobody has ever been able to replicate this. All the communication has to be interpreted through that individual, and anyone else (including people that speak sign language) have confirmed that they're just making random hand motions in exchange for food
They don't have the dexterity to really sign properly
- krapht 1y agoCitation needed.
- joncrocks 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_language#Criticism_and_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_language#Criticism_a... - Not word for word, but certainly casting doubt that apes were ever really communicating in the way that people may have thought.
- mkl 1y agoThat article does completely refute 20k's claim that it was all done by one person though.
- MangoToupe 1y agoThe way linguists define communication via language? Sure. Let's not drag the rest of humanity into this presumption.
- conception 1y agoSearching for koko ape fraud seems to produce a lot.
- ralfd 1y ago> In his lecture, Sapolsky alleges that Patterson spontaneously corrects Koko’s signs: “She would ask, ‘Koko, what do you call this thing?’ and [Koko] would come up with a completely wrong sign, and Patterson would say, ‘Oh, stop kidding around!’ And then Patterson would show her the next one, and Koko would get it wrong, and Patterson would say, ‘Oh, you funny gorilla.’ ” More weirdly was this lawsuit against Patterson: > The lawsuit alleged that in response to signing from Koko, Patterson pressured Keller and Alperin (two of the female staff) to flash the ape. "Oh, yes, Koko, Nancy has nipples. Nancy can show you her nipples," Patterson reportedly said on one occasion. And on another: "Koko, you see my nipples all the time. You are probably bored with my nipples. You need to see new nipples. I will turn my back so Kendra can show you her nipples."[47] Shortly thereafter, a third woman filed suit, alleging that upon being first introduced to Koko, Patterson told her that Koko was communicating that she wanted to see the woman's nipples There was a bonobo named Kanzi who learned hundreds of lexigrams. The main criticism here seems to be that while Kanzi truly did know the symbol for “Strawberry” he “used the symbol for “strawberry” as the name for the object, as a request to go where the strawberries are, as a request to eat some strawberries”. So no object-verb sentences and so no grammar which means no true language according to linguists. https://linguisticdiscovery.com/posts/kanzi/ https://linguisticdiscovery.com/posts/kanzi/
- galaxyLogic 1y ago> So no object-verb sentences and so no grammar which means no true language Great distinction. The stuff about showing nipples sounds creepy.
- pegasus 1y agoYou only need a citation for the idea that apes aren't able to speak sign language?
- acdha 1y agoThey claimed fraud by a single person, with zero replication. That’s both testable so they should be able to support it. At the very least, more than one researcher was involved and more than one ape was alleged to have learned ASL. There is a better discussion about what our threshold is for speech, along with our threshold for saying that research is fraud vs. mistaken, but we don’t fix sloppiness by engaging in more of it.
- galaxyLogic 1y agoSO why wasn't the research continued further if results were good? My assumption is it was because of the - Fear of the Planet of Apes!
- rightbyte 1y agoI mean dogs can learn a simple sign language?
- leptons 1y agoCan the dogs sign back? Even dogs that learn to press buttons are mostly just pressing them to get treats. They don't ask questions, and it's not really a conversation.
- rightbyte 1y agoThey can like barf as part of a trick and do "thing we are searching for is in that direction" etc but not very abstract communications.