The language-like behavior of Lana chimpanzee: Is it merely discrimination and paired-associate learning?

Abstract

The productions of Lana chimpanzee during an experiment that lasted 26 days were analyzed from a "stock sentence" approach and from a phrase-structure approach. In answering questions posed by the experimenter and in making requests, Lana's productions seemed to be best explained in the phrase-structure approach, in which phrases, rather than individuallexigrams, served as lexical units. Phrases were transposed, both correctly and incorrectly, and were combined to convey different meanings. Thus, it was concluded that Lana's productions require a more complex model than the simple discrimination learning model suggested by Thompson and Church (1980).Recently, Thompson and Church (1980) argued that at least one data block of the language-like behavior of Lana chimpanzee (Rumbaugh, 1977) could be explained, for the most part, in terms of conditional discriminations and paired-associate learning. A discrimination among six "stock" sentences and a choice of an appropriate lexigram as the paired associate of something in Lana's environment accounted for 91070 of her sentences when the experimenter was present and 66% of her sentences when the experimenter was absent. Obviously; if all of Lana's productions can be explained in this rather simple way, language-like behavior remains just that, language-like behavior.Since Lana was trained to use the system by being taught "stock" sentences, it is not surprising that much of her early behavior in the language-learning project can be accounted for in this way. These "stock" sentences, which Lana had been taught explicitly, serve as frames into which other units (lexigrams in this case) can be placed. But the number of "stock" sentences is of some importance in that if the number necessary to account for her behavior is very large, then the idea of a "stock" sentence loses its value; that is, if the number of frames becomes excessively large, it can be argued that the "stock"

In the beginning was the "name."

“…The validity of Thompson and Church’s “stock sequence + paired-associate” hypothesis was questioned by Pate & Rumbaugh (1983) in their analysis of Lana’s later productions. Pate and Rumbaugh concluded that, given the variety of the stock sentences and the paired associates that would be needed to account for Lana’s well-formed sequences, they were generated by rules (unspecified) more complex than those offered by Thompson and Church.…”

“…Nor is it meant to imply that a pigeon could master even a single arbitrary sequence as rapidly as a chimpanzee could. Indeed, there is strong evidence to the contrary (Pate & Rumbaugh, 1983). There is also no reason to assume that pigeons and chimpanzees use similar strategies in learning to produce a sequence.…”

Use of Augmentative Interspecies Communication devices in animal language studies: A review

“…Over the course of numerous investigations into human‐like language in AIC device‐trained animals, claims of linguistic intelligence have varied in theoretical basis. As there is “no universally accepted definition of language” (Hill, 1980), arguments for/against the presence of linguistic intelligence have varied, from comprehension of abstract concepts (Herman & Forestell, 1985; Savage‐Rumbaugh, Rumbaugh, & Boysen, 1980a), comprehension of sentence semantics (Pate & Rumbaugh, 1983), to the ability to label items (Gill & Rumbaugh, 1974; Mistler‐Lachman et al, 1974). Syntax, facets of which include word order, hierarchical structure, and recursivity (Hill, 1980), has also been a major focus in the study of language‐like abilities in animals.…”

“…arguments for/against the presence of linguistic intelligence have varied, from comprehension of abstract concepts (Herman & Forestell, 1985;Savage-Rumbaugh, Rumbaugh, & Boysen, 1980a), comprehension of sentence semantics (Pate & Rumbaugh, 1983), to the ability to label items Mistler-Lachman et al, 1974). Syntax, facets of which include word order, hierarchical structure, and recursivity (Hill, 1980), has also been a major focus in the study of language-like abilities in animals.…”

Comparative psychology: Patterns in adaptation.

“…She generated dozens and dozens of strings, many of which came about simply because the potential length of a sentence was increased with a redesign of the keyboard. Pate and Rumbaugh (1983) retested the model defined by Thompson and Church with another (later and larger) corpus of Lana's utterances. Their model was found inadequate to cope with the new data base, because it would have required that Lana have available to her a much larger number of stock sentences (about 135) than the few that she had been taught.…”