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Week Two: Animal Communication and Language

We discussed last week the initial 13 points of design that Hockett devised. He later

added two more. Throughout this handout, my points are added in square brackets.

From Charles Hockett (1966), "The Problem of Universals in Language"

The Search for Universals Through Comparison with Animal Systems

"The design-features listed below are found in every language on which we

have reliable information, and each seems to be lacking in at least one known

animal communicative system. They are not all logically independent, and do

not necessarily all belong to our defining list for language--a point to be taken

up separately..."

1. Mode of communication-vocal-auditory, tacticle-visual, or chemical-

olfactory [dual systems; sender and receiver].

2. Rapid Fading: Message does not linger in time or space after production.

3. Interchangeability: individuals who use a language can both send and

receive any permissible message within that communication system.

4. Feedback: users of a language can perceive what they are transmitting

and can make corrections if they make errors.

5. Specialization: the direct-energetic consequences of linguistic signals are

usually biologically trivial; only the triggering effects are important.

6. Semanticity: there are associative ties between signal elements and

features in the world; in short, some linguistic forms have denotations.

7. Arbitrariness: there is no logical connection between the form of the signal

and its meaning.

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8. Discreteness: messages in the system are made up of smaller, repeatable

parts; the sounds of language (or cheremes of a sign) are perceived

categorically, not continuously.

9. Displacement: linguistic messages may refer to things remote in time and

space, or both, from the site of the communication.

10. Productivity: users can create and understand completely novel

messages.

10.1. In a language, new messages are freely

coined by blending, analogizing from, or

transforming old ones. This says that every

language has grammatical patterning.

10.2. In a language, either new or old elements are

freely assigned new semantic loads by

circumstances and context. This says that in every

language new idioms constantly come into

existence.

11. Cultural transmission: the conventions of a language are learned by

interacting with more experienced users. [ We learn language from contact

with competent language users, this explains why infants do not intrinsically

know all languages].

12. Duality (of Patterning): a large number of meaningful elements are made

up of a conveniently small number of meaningless but message-differentiating

elements.

13. Prevarication: linguistic messages can be false, deceptive, or

meaningless.

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14. Reflexiveness: In a language, one can communicate about

communication. [We do this every week in GH Language].

15. Learnability: A speaker of a language can learn another language.

[Question: is this the same way infants learn language?]

"There is...a sense in which [productivity], displacement, and duality [of

patterning]...can be regarded as the crucial, or nuclear, or central

properties of human language."

[Question: So what exactly is it about us that makes us UNIQUE?]

Hockett's Design Features and their implications for human language

1. Hockett suggests that the importance of a vocal-auditory channel lies in the fact that the animal can communicate while also performing other tasks, such as eating, or using tools.

2. Broadcast Transmission and Directional Reception: An auditory|audible human language signal is sent out in all directions, but is perceived in a limited direction. For example, humans are more proficient in determining the location of a sound source when the sound is projecting directly in front of them as opposed to a sound source projected directly behind them.

3. Rapid Fading of a signal in human communication differs from such things as animal tracks and written language because an utterance does not continue to exist after it has been broadcast. With this in mind, it is important to note that Hockett viewed spoken language as the primary concern for investigation. Written language was seen as being secondary due to its recent evolution in culture.

4. Interchangeability

Interchangeability

Interchangeability can refer to:*Interchangeability : A condition in which exist two or more items with characteristics making them equivalent in performance and durability, making them fully exchangeable.... represents a human's ability to act out or reproduce any linguistic message that they are able to comprehend. This differs from many animal communication systems, particularly in regards to mating. For example, humans have the ability to say and do anything that they feel may benefit them in attracting a mate. Stickleback

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Stickleback

The Gasterosteidae are a family of fish including the sticklebacks. FishBase currently recognises sixteen species in the family, grouped in five genera....s on the other hand have different male and female courtship motions; a male cannot replicate a female's motions and vice versa.

5. Total Feedback is important in differentiating a human's ability to internalize their own productions of speech and behavior. This design-feature incorporates the idea that humans have insight into their actions.

6. Specialization

Specialization

Specialisation, also spelt specialization, is an important way to generate propositional knowledge, by applying general knowledge, such as the theory of gravity, to specific instances, such as "when I release this apple, it will fall to the floor".... is apparent in the anatomy of human speech organs and our ability to exhibit some control over these organs. For example, a key assumption in the evolution of language is that the descent of the larynx

Larynx

The larynx , colloquially known as the voicebox, is an organ in the neck of mammals involved in protection of the vertebrate trachea and sound production.... has allowed humans to produce speech sounds. Additionally, in terms of control, humans are generally able to control the movements of their tongue and mouth. Dogs however, do not have control over these organs. When dogs pant they are communicating a signal, but the panting is an uncontrollable response reflex of being hot (*).

7. Semanticity: A specific signal can be matched with a specific meaning within a particular language system. For example, all people that understand English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa... have the ability to make a connection between a specific word and what that word represents or refers to. (Hockett notes that gibbon

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Gibbon

Gibbons are the small apes in the family Hylobatidae. The family is divided into four genus based on their diploid chromosome number: Hylobates , Hoolock , Nomascus , and Symphalangus ....s also show semanticity in their signals, however their calls are far more broad than human language.)

8. Arbitrariness within human language suggests that there is no direct connection between the type of signal (word) and what is being referenced. For example, an animal as large as a cow can be referred to by a very short word (*).

9. Discreteness: Each basic unit of speech can be categorized and is distinct from other categories. In human language there are only a small set of sound ranges that are used and the differences between these bits of sound are absolute. In contrast, the waggle dance

Waggle dance

Waggle dance is a term used in beekeeping and ethology for a particular figure-eight dance of the honey bee. By performing this dance, successful foragers can share with their Beehive mates information about the direction and distance to patches of flowers yielding nectar and pollen, to water sources, or to new housing locations.... of honeybees is continuous.

10. Displacement

Displacement

Displacement may refer to:... refers to the human language system's ability to communicate about things that are not present spatially, temporally, or realistically. For example, humans have the ability to communicate about unicorns and outer space.

11. Productivity

Productivity (linguistics)

In linguistics, productivity is the degree to which native speakers use a particular grammatical process, especially in word formation. Since use to produce novel structures is the clearest proof of usage of a grammatical process, the evidence most often appealed to as establishing productivity is the appearance of novel forms of the type th...: human language is open and productive in the sense that humans have the ability to say things that have never before been spoken or heard. In contrast,

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apes such as the gibbon have a closed communication system because all of their vocal sounds are part of a finite repertoire of familiar calls.

12. Traditional Transmission

Traditional Transmission

Traditional transmission is a design feature of language that the anthropology Charles F. Hockett developed to distinguish the features of human language from those of animal communication.... suggests that while certain aspects of language

Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon.... may be innate, human

Human

A human being, also human or man, is a member of a species of bipedalism primates in the family Hominidae . Mitochondrial DNA evidence indicates that modern humans originated in east Africa about 200,000 years ago....s acquire words and their native language from other speakers. This is different from many animal communication

Animal communication

Animal communication is any behaviour on the part of one animal that has an effect on the current or future behaviour of another animal. The study of animal communication, sometimes called zoosemiotics has played an important part in the development of ethology, sociobiology, and the study of animal cognition.... systems because most animals are born with the innate knowledge

Knowledge

Knowledge is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject, what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information or awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation.... and skills

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Skills

Skills is a San Francisco-based event promoter that promotes parties and concerts in San Francisco and the SF Bay Area. It is known for being one of the most popular and largest electronic music promoters in California and the United States.... necessary for survival

Survival

Survival may refer to:* Survival analysis* Survival of the fittest* Survival kit* Survival rate* Survival skills* Survivalism, a survival belief based around preparation for survival after social upheaval.... (Example: Honeybees have an inborn ability to perform and understand the waggle dance

Waggle dance

Waggle dance is a term used in beekeeping and ethology for a particular figure-eight dance of the honey bee. By performing this dance, successful foragers can share with their Beehive mates information about the direction and distance to patches of flowers yielding nectar and pollen, to water sources, or to new housing locations....).

13. Duality of Patterning: Humans have the ability to recombine a finite set of phoneme

Phoneme

In human language, a phoneme is the smallest posited linguistically distinctive unit of sound. Phonemes carry no semantic content themselves. In theoretical terms, phonemes are not the physical segment s themselves, but cognitive abstractions or categorizations of them....s to create an infinite number of words and sounds.

Design Feature Representation in other Communication Systems

Honeybees

Foraging honeybees communicate with other members of their hiveHive

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Hive may refer to:... when they have discovered a relevant source of pollenPollen

Pollen is a fine to coarse powder consisting of Gametophyte , which produce the male gametes of spermatophyta. A hard coat covering the pollen grain protects the sperm cells during the process of their movement between the stamens of the flower to the pistil of the next flower...., nectar, or waterWater

Water is a common chemical substance that is essential for the survival of all known forms of life. In typical usage, water refers only to its liquid form or States of matter, but the substance also has a solid state, ice, and a gaseous state, water vapor or steam..... In an effort relate information in regards to the location and distance of the resources, honeybees participate in a particular figure-eight dance known as the waggle danceWaggle dance

Waggle dance is a term used in beekeeping and ethology for a particular figure-eight dance of the honey bee. By performing this dance, successful foragers can share with their Beehive mates information about the direction and distance to patches of flowers yielding nectar and pollen, to water sources, or to new housing locations.....

In Charles Hockett's "The Origin of Speech," Hockett determined that the honeybee communicationCommunication

Communication is commonly defined as "the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs...",, 1: an act or instance of transmitting and 3 a: "a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or beha... system of the waggle danceWaggle dance

Waggle dance is a term used in beekeeping and ethology for a particular figure-eight dance of the honey bee. By performing this dance, successful foragers can share with their Beehive mates information about the direction and distance to patches of flowers yielding nectar and pollen, to water sources, or to new housing locations.... holds the following design featuresDesign Features of Language

The Design Features of Language was a phrase coined in the 1960's by the American linguist Charles Hockett. Hockett believed that there existed 16 features of human language that distinguished human communication from that of animals....:

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1. Broadcast Transmission and Directional Reception - Through the use of this dance, honeybees are able to send out a signal that informs other members of the hive

Hive

Hive may refer to:... as to what direction the source of food

Food

Food is any substance, usually composed of carbohydrates, fats, proteins and water, that can be Eating or Drinking by an animal or human for nutrition or pleasure...., or water

Water

Water is a common chemical substance that is essential for the survival of all known forms of life. In typical usage, water refers only to its liquid form or States of matter, but the substance also has a solid state, ice, and a gaseous state, water vapor or steam.... can be located.

2. Semanticity - Evidence that the specific signals of a communication

Communication

Communication is commonly defined as "the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs...",, 1: an act or instance of transmitting and 3 a: "a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or beha... system can be matched with specific meanings is apparent because other members of the hive

Hive

Hive may refer to:... are able to locate the food source after a performance of the waggle dance

Waggle dance

Waggle dance is a term used in beekeeping and ethology for a particular

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figure-eight dance of the honey bee. By performing this dance, successful foragers can share with their Beehive mates information about the direction and distance to patches of flowers yielding nectar and pollen, to water sources, or to new housing locations.....

3. Displacement

Displacement

Displacement may refer to:... - Demonstrated in the foraging honeybees ability to communicate about a resource that is not currently present within the hive

Hive

Hive may refer to:....

4. Productivity

Productivity (linguistics)

In linguistics, productivity is the degree to which native speakers use a particular grammatical process, especially in word formation. Since use to produce novel structures is the clearest proof of usage of a grammatical process, the evidence most often appealed to as establishing productivity is the appearance of novel forms of the type th... - waggle dance

Waggle dance

Waggle dance is a term used in beekeeping and ethology for a particular figure-eight dance of the honey bee. By performing this dance, successful foragers can share with their Beehive mates information about the direction and distance to patches of flowers yielding nectar and pollen, to water sources, or to new housing locations....s change based on the direction, amount, and type of resource.

GibbonGibbon

Gibbons are the small apes in the family Hylobatidae. The family is divided into four genus based on their diploid chromosome number: Hylobates , Hoolock ,

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Nomascus , and Symphalangus ....s

GibbonGibbon

Gibbons are the small apes in the family Hylobatidae. The family is divided into four genus based on their diploid chromosome number: Hylobates , Hoolock , Nomascus , and Symphalangus ....s are small apes in the family Hylobatidae. While gibbonGibbon

Gibbons are the small apes in the family Hylobatidae. The family is divided into four genus based on their diploid chromosome number: Hylobates , Hoolock , Nomascus , and Symphalangus ....s share the same kingdomKingdom (biology)

In Biology taxonomy, kingdom or regnum is a taxonomic rank in either the highest rank, or the Rank below domain . Each kingdom is divided into smaller groups called Phylum ...., phylumPhylum

A phylum "Phylum" is adopted from the Greek phylai, the clan-based voting groups in Greek city-states. is a taxonomic rank below Kingdom and above Class ...., classClass (biology)

A class is the taxonomic rank in the biological classification of organisms in biology below phylum and above Order .The orders of taxonomy are life, Domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species...., and orderOrder (biology)

In Biological classification used in biology, the order is a taxonomic rank between class and family . The superorder is a rank between class and order.... of humanHuman

A human being, also human or man, is a member of a species of bipedalism primates in the family Hominidae . Mitochondrial DNA evidence indicates that modern humans originated in east Africa about 200,000 years ago....s and are relatively close to man, Hockett distinguishes between the GibbonGibbon

Gibbons are the small apes in the family Hylobatidae. The family is divided into four genus based on their diploid chromosome number: Hylobates , Hoolock , Nomascus , and Symphalangus .... communication

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Communication

Communication is commonly defined as "the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs...",, 1: an act or instance of transmitting and 3 a: "a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or beha... system and human languageHuman language

A human language is a language primarily intended for communication among humans. The two major categories of human languages are natural languages and constructed languages.... by noting that GibbonGibbon

Gibbons are the small apes in the family Hylobatidae. The family is divided into four genus based on their diploid chromosome number: Hylobates , Hoolock , Nomascus , and Symphalangus ....s are devoid of the last four design features.

GibbonGibbon

Gibbons are the small apes in the family Hylobatidae. The family is divided into four genus based on their diploid chromosome number: Hylobates , Hoolock , Nomascus , and Symphalangus ....s possess the first nine design featuresDesign Features of Language

The Design Features of Language was a phrase coined in the 1960's by the American linguist Charles Hockett. Hockett believed that there existed 16 features of human language that distinguished human communication from that of animals...., but do not possess the last four (displacementDisplacement

Displacement may refer to:..., productivityProductivity

Productivity in economics refers to metrics and measures of output from production processes, per unit of input. Labor productivity, for example, is typically measured as a ratio of output per labor-hour, an input...., traditional transmissionTraditional Transmission

Traditional transmission is a design feature of language that the anthropology Charles F. Hockett developed to distinguish the features of human language from those of animal communication...., and duality of patterning).

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1. Displacement

Displacement

Displacement may refer to:..., according to Hockett, appears to be lacking in the vocal signal

Signal

Signal, signals, signaling, or signalling may refer to:...ing of apes.

2. Productivity

Productivity

Productivity in economics refers to metrics and measures of output from production processes, per unit of input. Labor productivity, for example, is typically measured as a ratio of output per labor-hour, an input.... does not exist among Gibbon

Gibbon

Gibbons are the small apes in the family Hylobatidae. The family is divided into four genus based on their diploid chromosome number: Hylobates , Hoolock , Nomascus , and Symphalangus ....s because if any vocal sound

Sound

Sound is vibration transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a threshold of hearing to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.... is produced, it is one of a finite set of repetitive and familiar calls.

3. Hockett supports the idea that human

Human

A human being, also human or man, is a member of a species of bipedalism primates in the family Hominidae . Mitochondrial DNA evidence indicates that modern humans originated in east Africa about 200,000 years ago....s learn language

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Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon.... extragenetically through the process of traditional transmission

Traditional Transmission

Traditional transmission is a design feature of language that the anthropology Charles F. Hockett developed to distinguish the features of human language from those of animal communication..... Hockett distinguishes Gibbon

Gibbon

Gibbons are the small apes in the family Hylobatidae. The family is divided into four genus based on their diploid chromosome number: Hylobates , Hoolock , Nomascus , and Symphalangus ....s from humans by stating that despite any similarities in communication

Communication

Communication is commonly defined as "the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs...",, 1: an act or instance of transmitting and 3 a: "a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or beha... among a species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.... of apes, we cannot attribute these similarities to acquisition through the teaching and learning

Learning

Learning is acquiring new knowledge, behaviors, skills, Value s, preferences or understanding, and may involve synthesizing different types of information.... (traditional transmission

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Traditional Transmission

Traditional transmission is a design feature of language that the anthropology Charles F. Hockett developed to distinguish the features of human language from those of animal communication....) of signals; the only explanation must be a genetic

Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of heredity and Genetic variation in living organisms. The fact that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding.... basis.

4. Finally, duality of patterning explains a human

Human

A human being, also human or man, is a member of a species of bipedalism primates in the family Hominidae . Mitochondrial DNA evidence indicates that modern humans originated in east Africa about 200,000 years ago....'s ability to create multiple meanings from somewhat meaningless sounds. For example, the sounds /t/, /a/, /c/ can be used to create the word

Word

A word is a unit of language that represents a concept which can be expressively communication with Meaning . A word consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together, and has a phonetic value....s cat

Cat

The cat , also known as the Domestication cat or house cat to distinguish it from other Felinae and Felidae, is a small predationy carnivore species of crepuscular mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and its ability to hunt vermin, snakes, scorpions, and other unwanted household pests...., tack

Tack

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Tack may refer to:* Tack, a type of cut Nail , used in upholstery, shoe making and saddle manufacture* Horse tack, harness and equipment to allow horse-back riding..., and act

ACT

ACT may refer to:Most commonly:* Australian Capital Territory, the capital territory of the Commonwealth of Australia* ACT , a college entrance exam in the United States.... Hockett states that no other Hominoid communication

Communication

Communication is commonly defined as "the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs...",, 1: an act or instance of transmitting and 3 a: "a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or beha... system besides human language

Human language

A human language is a language primarily intended for communication among humans. The two major categories of human languages are natural languages and constructed languages.... maintains this ability.

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Bees

Taken from the Department of Entomology: NY State University:

http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/entomology/apiculture/Dance_language.html, 1/10/07

There can be no argument that the most famous aspect of honey bee biology is their

method of recruitment, commonly known as the honey bee dance language. It has

served as a model example of animal communication in biology courses at all levels,

and is one of the most fascinating behaviors that can be observed in nature.

The dance language is used by one individual to communicate two items of

information to one ore more receivers: the distance and direction to a location

(typically a food source, such as a patch of flowers). It is usually used when an

experienced forager returns to her colony with a load of food, either nectar or pollen.

If the quality of the food is sufficiently high, she will often perform a "dance" on the

surface of the wax comb to recruit new foragers to the resource. The dance language

is also used to recruit scout bees to a new nest site during the process of reproductive

fission, or swarming. Recruits follow the dancing bee to obtain the information it

contains, and then exit the hive to the location of interest. The distance and direction

information contained in the dance are representations of the source's location and

thus is the only known abstract "language" in nature other than human language.

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The dance language is inextricably associated with Dr. Karl von Frisch, who is widely

accredited with discovering its meaning. He and his students carefully described the

different components of the language through decades of research. Their experiments

typically used glass-walled observation hives, training marked foragers to artificial

feeders placed at known distances from a colony, and carefully measuring the angle

and duration of the dances when the foragers returned. His work eventually earned

him the Nobel Prize (in Medicine) in 1973.

The concept of a honey bee language, however, has not been free of scepticism.

Several scientists have argued that simply because the dance exists does necessarily

mean that it communicates information about the location of a food source. Those

critics have argued that floral odours on a forager's body are the major cues that

recruits use to locate novel food sources. Many experiments have directly tested this

alternative hypothesis and demonstrated the importance of floral odours in food

location.

The biological reality, however, is somewhere in between these two extremes. The

current conventional wisdom holds that recruits go to the area depicted in the dance,

but then "home in" to the flower patch using odour cues. Indeed, researchers have

built a robotic honey bee that is able to perform the dance language and recruit novice

foragers to specific locations. The robot, however, is unable to properly recruit

foragers to a food source unless there is some odour cue on its surface. Nevertheless,

it is clear that honey bees use the distance and direction information communicated by

the dance language, which represents one of the most intriguing examples of animal

communication.

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Components of the dance language

At its core, there are two things communicated in a dance: distance and direction. These two pieces of

information are translated into separate components of the dance.

Distance

When a food source is very close to the hive (i.e., less than 50 meters away), a

forager performs a round dance (see Figure). She does so by running around in

narrow circles, suddenly reversing direction to her original course. She may

repeat the dance several times at the same location or move to another location

to repeat the dance. After the round dance has ended, she often distributes food

to the bees following her. A round dance, therefore, communicates distance

("close to the hive"), but no direction.

Dance diagrams: from von Frisch, 1976 p. 70.

Food sources that are at intermediate distances, between 50 and 150 meters away

from the hive, are recruited to with the sickle dance. The form of this dance is

crescent-shaped, a transitional dance between a round dance and a figure-eight waggle

dance (see below).

A waggle dance, or wag-tail dance, is performed by bees foraging at food sources that

are over 150 meters away from the hive. This dance, unlike the round and sickle

dances, communicates both distance and direction² to potential recruits. A bee that

performs a waggle dance runs straight ahead for a short distance, returns in a

semicircle to the starting point, runs again through the straight course, then makes a

semicircle in the opposite direction to complete a full, figure-eight circuit. While

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running the straight-line course of the dance, the bee’s body, especially the abdomen,

wags vigorously sideways. This vibration of the body gives a tail-wagging motion. At

the same time, the bee emits a train of buzzing sound at a low frequency of 250-300

Hertz (cycles per second) with a pulse duration of about 20 milliseconds and a

repetition of frequency of ca 30 seconds. The sound is produced by wingbeats.

While several variables

of the waggle dance are

correlated with distance

information (e.g., dance

"tempo", duration of

buzzing sounds), the

duration of the straight

run portion of the dance,

measured in seconds, is

the simplest and most

reliable indicator of

distance. As the distance to the food source increases, the duration of the waggling

portion of the dance (the "waggle run") also increases. The relationship is roughly

linear, as shown in the figure. For example, a forager that performs a waggle run that

lasts 2.5 seconds is recruiting for a food source located approximately 2625 meters

away.

Direction

While the representation of distance in the waggle dance is relatively straight-

forward, the method of communicating direction is more complicated and

abstract. The orientation of the dancing bee during the straight portion of her

waggle dance indicates the location of the food source relative to the sun. The

angle that the bee adpots, relative to vertical, represents the angle to the

flowers relative to the direction of the sun outside of the hive. In other words,

the dancing bee transposes the solar angle into the gravitational angle. The

figure below gives three examples. A forager recruiting to a food source in the

same direction as the sun will perform a dance with the waggle run portion

directly up on the comb. Conversely, if the food source were located directly

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away from the sun, the straight run would be directed vertically down. If the

food source were 60 degrees to the left of the sun, the waggle run would be 60

degrees to the left of vertical.

Direction figure: from Barth, F. G. 1982. Insects and Flowers: The Biology of a Partnership, p. 221, Princeton University Press

Because the direction information is relative to the sun's position, not the compass

direction, a forager's dance for a particular resource will change over time. This is

because the sun's position moves over the course of a day. For example, a food source

located due east will have foragers dance approximately straight up in the morning

(because the sun rises in the east), but will have foragers dance approximately straight

down in the late afternoon (because the sun sets in the west). Thus the time of day (or,

more importantly, the location of the sun) is an important variable to interpret the

direction information in the dance.

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The sun's position is also a function of one's geographic location and the time of year.

The sun will always move from from east to west over the course of the day.

However, above the tropic of cancer, the sun will always be in the south, whereas

below the tropic of capricorn, the sun will always be in the north. Within the tropics,

the sun can pass to the south or to the north, depending on the time of year.

In summary, in order to translate the direction information contained in the honey bee

dance language, one must know the angle of the waggle run (with respect to gravity)

and the compass direction of the sun (which depends on location, date, and time of

day).

[To see a waggle dance go to U-tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7ijI-g4jHg]

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Honeybee Waggle Dance Experimenthttp://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ywdTfEBVcSY&NR=1

Parrots

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/pepperberg.html

"THAT DAMN BIRD" [9.23.03] A Talk with Irene Pepperberg

What the data suggest to me is that if one starts with a brain of a certain

complexity and gives it enough social and ecological support, that brain will

develop at least the building blocks of a complex communication system. Of

course, chimpanzees don't proceed to develop full-blown language the way you

and I have. Grey parrots, such as Alex and Griffin, are never going to sit here and

give an interview the way you and I are conducting an interview and having a

chat. But they are going to produce meaningful, complex communicative

combinations. It is incredibly fascinating to have creatures so evolutionarily

separate from humans performing simple forms of the same types of complex

cognitive tasks as do young children.

http://www.edge.org/video/dsl/pepperberg.html

Introduction by Marc D. Hauser

In the late 1960s, a flurry of research on the great apes—chimpanzees, gorillas,

and orangutans—began to challenge our uniqueness, especially our capacity for

language and abstract conceptual abilities. Everyone soon weighed in on this

debate including the linguist Noam Chomsky, the philosophers John Searle and

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Daniel Dennett, and the psychologist Burrhus Skinner. One corner of this debate

focused on the assumption that you need a big primate brain to handle problems

of reference, syntax, abstract representations, and so forth. It was to this corner

of the debate that Irene Pepperberg first turned. She started with a challenge: do

you really need a big primate brain to run these computations? After over 20

years of work with her African Gray parrot Alex, the clear answer is "No!"

Irene's intellectual journey with Alex is an impressive one because she has

sustained a consistent line of research exploring some of the deepest problems

concerning the nature of mind, and in particular, the relationship between

language and thought. Her work has revealed that Alex can grasp important

aspects of number, color concepts, the difference between presence and absence,

and physical properties of objects such as their shape and material. These results

are not only relevant to the evolution of human cognition, but they are also

relevant to the evolution of animal cognition. By understanding what animals such

as Alex can do under tigthly controlled laboratory conditions, we can apply such

knowledge to what parrots do in the wild, the kinds of strategies they might use to

negotiate in such a complex social world. How far this work will go is anyone's

guess, but it is clear that Irene, Alex and her new stars will teach us a

lot along the way.

Marc D. Hauser, Director of Primate Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at

Harvard, and author of Wild Minds: What Animals Think.

IRENE PEPPERBERG studies Grey parrots. The main focus of her work is to

determine the cognitive and communicative abilities of these birds, and compare

their abilities with those of great apes, marine mammals, and young children. She

is studying the mechanisms of their learning as well as the outcomes.

Dr. Pepperberg is a a research scientist at the MIT School of Architecture and

Planning, and a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at

Brandeis University.

Apes

Taken from

‘Do Apes Have Language’ http://whyfiles.org/058language/ape_talk.html

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Speaking to the relatives Where did our capacity for language originate? Many linguists, echoing the influential Noam Chomsky, argue that it's a uniquely human gift. According to this school, chimpanzees and other close relatives could not use language because they lack the human brain structures that make language.

But other researchers disagree, pointing out that a few apes can use, at least to some extent, symbolic communications systems -- languages -- like American Sign Language. E. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, a Georgia State University biology professor, says the accepted wisdom reflects a long bias and that modern studies are refuting it.

Savage-Rumbaugh studies bonobos -- a relative of ours that, like chimpanzees, shares 98 to 99 percent of human genes. When you spend all day with bonobos, she says, "the differences don't loom very large... They look like us, care like us, smell like us, think like us. They are like us."

Speaking at the recent American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Philadelphia, Savage-Rumbaugh observed that since apes don't have a vocal tract, they can't make human language. Previous researchers have tried to overcome that liability by teaching apes sign language. Savage-Rumbaugh uses a "keyboard" consisting of 400 symbols, and what she finds is controversial. "If you talk to apes and point to little symbols, they learn to understand language just as I'm talking to you."

Instead of using behaviorism -- rewarding the apes with food each time they use a word correctly -- she allows the animals to pick up words in "normal" conversation. This seems to work. "Watching Kanzi [an experimental bonobo] in casual 'conversation,' one is struck by the intense give and take," wrote journalist Stephen Hart (see "The Language of Animals" in the bibliography). Furthermore, the researchers found Kanzi's understanding of

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new sentences to be about equal to that of a two-and-one-half-year-old child, Hart found.

She suspects that bonobos are using language in the wild, but since they congregate in trees in groups of about 100, "it's almost impossible to study them." And on the ground, they are silent to avoid predators.

Please step on the daisies Savage-Rumbaugh also contends that wild bonobos -- only an estimated 4,000 to 40,000 survive in Congo, formerly Zaire -- have a second communication system. This one resembles road signs built of smashed plants rather than steel.

The finding grew from the observation that troops of bonobos hang out in various locations during the day. When bonobos go foraging on the ground, the small groups must maintain "radio silence" to evade predators. Savage-Rumbaugh began wondering how one group manages to follow another to the next hangout.

In 1995, Savage-Rumbaugh spent two months studying bonobos at a research station operated by Takayoshi Kano, a Japanese primate researcher in the Congo forest. During two days of following troops with local bonobo trackers, she observed that their trails were clearly marked by smashed plants and branches planted at an angle to the direction of travel.

Although skeptics could counter that she was just seeing trampled plants, she contends they actually were road signs since they occurred only at trail intersections. "These clues are not left at arbitrary points in the vegetation but rather at locations where trails split and where an individual following might be confused as to the correct direction to take."

Thus in swamps, where plenty of footprints mark the trail, the road signs are not needed and not seen. While the finding has not been replicated in other primates, Savage-Rumbaugh suspects that it does represent the kind of symbolic communication system humans rely on. "This is the first time that anyone has tried to say that this altered vegetation is communicating anything." This just in -- how babies learn to talk...and talk, and talk.

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"My best friend is a chimp" Roger Fouts. Psychology Today. New York: Jul/Aug

2000. Vol.33, Iss. 4;  pg. 68, 6 pgs

Abstract (Document Summary)

Thirty years of working closely with chimpanzees have convinced Fouts that, like

humans, chimps nurture family bonds, adopt orphans, mourn the death of mothers,

self-medicate and wage war. In fact, chimpanzees are the closest psychological

cousins to humans.

Copyright Sussex Publishers, Inc. Jul/Aug 2000

It was exactly 33 years ago that 1 first met of one of my oldest and dearest friends. To

this day, the most outstanding aspect of her personality remains a quality I noticed the

very first time I laid eyes on her: She is one of the most caring and compassionate

people I know She's also a chimpanzee.

I first encountered Washoe during an interview with R. Allen Gardner, Ph.D., an

experimental psychologist at the University of Nevada at Reno. Gardner was seeking

assistants to teach his young chimp American Sign Language (ASL); I was

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desperately seeking a graduate assistantship to help fund my studies in experimental

psychology.

The interview did not go particularly well. My research background in clinical

psychology and my interest in philosophy-"soft" subjects, according to Gardner-did

not impress the toughminded scientist, known for his strict laboratory methods and

mathematical precision. As Gardner ended the meeting, he asked if I wanted to meet

Washoe. I was sure I had lost any chance of scoring the job, but I said yes

nonetheless. Gardner and I strolled across the Reno campus toward a play yard

enclosed by a 4-foot-high chain link fence. Within, two people were playing with

what seemed to be a human infant. At first sight of us, the child began running across

the yard towards us. It was then that I realized that this "child" was actually Washoe, a

2-year-old chimpanzee. She reached the fence and, without breaking stride, leaped

over the top, landed in my arms and gave me a big hug. Gardner seemed as surprised

as I was: Washoe had chosen a complete stranger to embrace over her surrogate

father. I could think of no one who needed a hug more at that moment than I did. That

first glimpse of Washoe's seeming capacity for empathy not only foreshadowed how

much I would eventually learn about the complex inner lives of chimpanzees. It also

got me the job.

Chimps, Our Closest Cousins

In the past few decades, scientific evidence on chimps and other nonhuman primates

has poured in to support one basic fact: We have much more in common with the apes

than most people care to believe. Often cited is the statistic that humans have 98.4%

of the same DICTA as chimps, humans having branched off from chimpanzees just

six million years ago on the evolutionary tree. Research suggests that, like us, chimps

are highly intelligent, cooperative and sometimes violent primates who nurture family

bonds, adopt orphans, mourn the death of mothers, practice self medication, struggle

for power and wage war. And that only makes sense, because the chimp brain and the

human brain both evolved from the same brainthat of our common ape ancestor. The

mental processes inside these two brains have become specialized as they adapted to

different social needs over six million years, but they still share the same underlying

ancestral intelligence.

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In the past year alone, numerous studies have highlighted our remarkable likeness not

only to chimps, but to monkeys and apes of all kinds. A 1999 Columbia study

conducted by psychologist Herbert Terrace, Ph.D., showed that rhesus monkeys have

rudimentary arithmetic skills, and that they can think using symbols. The Yerkes

Regional Primate Research Center released a study in April indicating that capuchin

monkeys work together to gather food and then share the fruits of their labor; head

researcher Franc de Waal, Ph.D., suggests that this kind of cooperation may be an

essential element of human society And a study published last May in the journal

Nature by famed chimpanzee researchers Jane Goodall, Ph.D., and Andrew Whiten,

Ph.D., shows that chimpanzees engage in more behaviors than are necessary for mere

survival, and that these behaviorswhich range from using rocks as hammers to crack

nuts to not using tools at all vary geographically, sound evidence that chimps might

have region-specific cultures.

Washoe herself has been the subject of groundbreaking and seminal studies on

primate communication. She was the very first nonhuman to learn a human langage-

ASL. Cameras have recorded her signing with other chimps with no humans present,

and she even passed her second language on to her adopted son.

But I don't need to read clinical studies or technical research texts to see that chimps

behave much like we do. After 30 years of conversing with and observing

chimpanzees-watching them closely and interacting with them on a day-to-day basis-

I'm more convinced than ever that chimp and human minds are fundamentally alike.

Many scientists beg to differ. In March, for example, Drew Rendall, Ph.D., assistant

professor of psychology at Canada's University of Lethbridge, and colleagues

published a study in the journal of Comparative Psychology showing that baboons

don't respond to each others' callsmother baboons don't even return the calls of their

lost infants. Rendall offers this as "proof" that nonhuman primates lack "theory of

mind," or the ability to infer another being's thoughts and feelings. The problem with

this logic: Scientists often attempt to compare ape, monkey and chimp minds to

human minds. When they don't match up, the researchers assume that their intellects

are completely unlike ours.

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Certainly, humans and chimpanzees dif fer in intellectual ability. But what differs is

their degree of intelligence, not the kind of mental processes they employ. There is no

bold line separating human intelligence from chimp intelligence.

My careful observations of chimps, comparing their specific behaviors to those of

humans, have shown me that our thoughts and actions overlap in many ways. These

up-close-and-personal experiences have given me proof of their compassion, their

cooperation, their empathy, their duplicity. The reason that chimps are the frequent

subjects of scientific experimenu is the very reason that testing and inferior treatment

is wrong: More than just our biological cousins, they are also our psychological and

emotional cousins.

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Natural Nurturers

One of the emotional traits that people deem most uniquely "human" is empathy Yet

empathy is one of Washoe's most obvious personal characteristics. From day one, I

had already seen traces of Washoe's ability to react to other creatures' feelings-

namely, mine. But I truly detected her compassion in 1970, when Gardner's entire

research unit moved to the Oklahoma Institute of Primate Studies. Here, Washoe was

no longer the baby of the family but was now living with chimpanzees a few years

younger than herself. The Institute was a sort of home for wayward chimpanzees, so

there were always young chimps coming and going. Soon, Washoe seemed to feel

responsible for the young transplants, perhaps because she had been one herself. (She

had been "wild-collected" from Africa at an early age by the U.S. space program,

where she would've become a subject in medical experiments had the Gardners not

taken to her during a visit to the program.)

One of the new arrivals, Bruno, had come to Oklahoma after participating in Herbert

Terrace's failed language project in New York. He had been raised by humans since

birth, so he wasn't trained in basic chimpanzee survival skills or accustomed to the

wilds of Oklahoma, where water moccasins and copperheads abounded. Chimpanzees

are naturally frightened of snakes. One day, a resident chimp cried out, signaling that

snakes were present. All of the animals moved rapidly away from that end of the

island, except for Bruno. Washoe was halfway to safety when she turned and saw

Bruno sitting on the snake-infested side of the island, blissfully unaware of impending

danger. Washoe stood up and emphatically signed "COME HUG COME HUG" to

Bruno, but the youngster remained sitting where he was, since he hadn't yet learned

ASL. Amazingly, Washoe scurried back to the danger zone, took Bruno by his hand

and led him to the safe end of the island.

Washoe also displayed her nurturing mentality during even more perilous rescue

missions while at the Institute. The island was surrounded by a moat with steep and

slippery red clay sides. After a drowning occurred, a two-strand, 3-foot-high electric

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fence was built around the edge of the island. The metal poles holding the wire were

placed in the grassy ledge about six inches from the water. Penny, a new chimpanzee,

arrived on the island one morning and, later that day, I heard her screaming at the top

of her lungs, likely as a result of being teased by the boys. Penny must have panicked,

because the next sound I heard was a splash. She had taken a running jump over the

fence and into the moat a frightening situation, since chimpanzees can't swim. I was

prepared to go in after her but Washoe beat me to it. She jumped over the electric

fence, landing precariously on the short, grassy ledge at the edge of the moat, then

slipped into the water while holding onto the bottom of the electric fence post. She

grabbed one of Penny's arms and pulled her to safety. I ran for a boat and dragged

both of them into it, rowing them back to the island's landing. To this day, I am

astounded by the dangerous rescue that I witnessed. Washoe had risked her own life

to save another chimpanzee, one she had known for only a few hours.

Reading Feelings

Perhaps the most striking examples of the chimpanzees' sense of sympathy and

empathy involves their emotional reactions to seeing humans in pain. In 1980,

Washoe and I moved to Central Washington University-our current home-along with

Loulis, her adopted son, and other surrogate siblings, Moja, Dar and Tatu, from the

Gardners' second project. While acting as a parent volunteer on a high school ski trip

one weekend, I fell and broke my arm. My physician had not put my arm in a cast, so

any movement was quite painful until the bones knitted. The following Monday I

walked into our laboratory with my arm in a sling. All of the chimpanzees must have

seen the pain I was trying to hide written plainly on my face, because instead of the

raucous pant-hoot greeting they typically let loose upon seeing me, they all sat very

still and watched me intently. Washoe signed "THERE" and pointed to my arm, so I

approached and knelt down by the wire mesh partition surrounding the chimps' large

living space. She gently put her fingers through the wire and groomed my arm gently,

making a soft clicking noise with her tongue. Tatu, in turn, signed "HURT" and

gently touched me as well. Even 10-year-old Loulis understood enough not to ask me

for his usual "CHASE" game until several weeks later, when I was on the mend.

Washoe has astutely reacted to the feelings of others as well. One of our longtime

volunteers, Kat Beach, became pregnant in the summer of 1982, and Washoe was

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fascinated with her swelling belly, often asking her about her "BABY". (Washoe

understood what babies were and where they came from, since she has been pregnant

twice and lost both offspring-one to a congenital heart defect, one to a respiratory

illness. She showed signs of depression each time. She also seems to know what the

parent-child relationship involves. My wife Debbi and I thought we had Washoe

fooled about our relationship until one day we asked her who she thought our 5-year-

old daughter Hillary was. Washoe signed "ROGER DEBBI BABY", leaving no doubt

about Hillary's identity and her relationship to us.)

Unfortunately, Kat eventually miscarried, and couldn't visit the chimpanzees for

several weeks. One facet of Washoe's personality is that she has extremely high

expectations of her friends. People who should be there for her and aren't are often

later given the cold shoulder-her way of informing them that she's miffed at them.

Washoe greeted Kat in just this way when she finally returned to work with the

chimps. Kat made her apologies to Washoe, then decided to tell her the truth, signing

"MY BABY DIED." Washoe stared at her, then looked down. She finally peered into

Kat's eyes again and carefully signed "CRY," touching her cheek and drawing her

finger down the path a tear would make on a human. (Chimpanzees don't shed tears.)

Kat later remarked that that one sign told her more about Washoe and her mental

capabilities than all her longer, more grammatically perfect sentences. When Kat

prepared to leave that day, Washoe did not want her to go without some emotional

support. She signed "PLEASE PERSON HUG."

Hair-Brained Schemes

Chimps' softer, sweeter emotions aren't the only evidence of their intellectual

capacity. Their minds are also, like ours, capable of deception, strategy and

manipulation.

Washoe adopted Loulis when he was 10 months old after having lost two of her own

babies. She doted on him. So Loulis would often abuse his special status and

Washoe's loving nature to get his way-and to get other chimpanzees in trouble. All he

had to do was scream, and Washoe would come running. She would sign "HUG" to

him and then, after comforting him, she would discipline the perpetrator. This turned

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Loulis into a bit of a spoiled brat. We observed that sometimes another chimpanzee

would not even touch him and he would scream and point at an innocent bystander,

just to get attention.

Dar was the one who finally figured out how to use Loulis' game to his own

advantage. Dar went over and pinched Loulis hard for no reason that we could see.

This started a screaming fight between the two. When Washoe rushed in from another

room Dar immediately threw himself on his back and started screaming and signing

"HUG HUG HUG", alternating it with a look toward Loulis. When Washoe started

swaggering in Loulis' direction to exact punishment, he stood for a moment as if he

couldn't believe his eyes, then retreated rapidly from the room. The tables had been

turned. Washoe then comforted a smug Dar, grooming him until he calmed down.

Chimps are People, Too

Before I started on Project Washoe three decades ago, I believed what I had been

taught by society: that humans were intellectually and emotionally superior to all

other species. We were like the pigs on George Orwell's Animal Farm, where all

animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

But as my observations of Washoe in natural social situations show, we're not as

unique as we believe. Ironically, chimpanzees' remarkable similarity to humans has

served not to protect them, but has actually worked against their welfare. The

biomedical community justifies experimenting on chimps, ravaging them with the

AIDS virus, organ transplantation, hepatitis and brain injury, by claiming that chimps'

physiology and biology is so similar to humans that the findings they yield are likely

to apply to us as well. What they ignore is that creatures who are so physiologically

similar to us may also be psychologically and mentally similar to us. They ignore the

ethical and moral implications of experimenting on creatures that, by the

experimenters' own admission, are so close to us. They can't have it both ways.

Changing this mindset was one of the most difficult things that I personally have ever

done. Working closely with chimps forced me to recognize that I was a part of a

research project whose prime subject was a helpless baby taken from her mother and

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her African homeland. It was a project that condemned a young girl to a life in which

she would always be out of place and, in effect, in prison. While Washoe's

circumstances are better now, with caretakers who love and respect her rather than

owners who do not appreciate her, she can never go home again. She was never

taught the skills she would need to survive in her native Africa, and yet she does not

entirely belong here in the human world, either. Given my current knowledge of free-

living chimpanzee culture and emotional life, I would never support or be a part of a

project like Project Washoe again. I have to accept that Washoe is a person by any

reasonable definition, and that the community of chimpanzees from which she was

stolen are a people. I regret that I cannot ever return her to her home.

So I act. In 1993, I established the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute,

a safe research environment based on mutual respect between humans and

chimpanzees. We do not enter the chimps' home or play areas, and any interaction

with us is up to them. Their interests and well-being are our first priority. Enrichment

of both humans and chimps is a full-time effort at the Chimpanzee and Human

Communication Institute, and it goes on all day But Washoe, Loulis, Tatu, Moja and

Dar take part in research only if they wish; they are not bribed with food, forced with

threats or socially harangued into submission.

As a scientist, I act on behalf of the chimpanzees. I speak out in favor of better living

conditions, sanctuaries and protecting preserves against biomedical research. I speak

out against logging, forest destruction, using apes in entertainment and captive

breeding. If you met them, you would, too.

Roger Fouts, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at Central Washington University and

co-director with his wife, Deborah Fouts, of the Chimpanzee and Human

Communication Institute

Bibliography

Charles Hockett (1966), "The Problem of Universals in Language"

Apes Can Video Games Treat Learning Disorders? J. Madeleine Nash, Time Magazine, 29 January, 1996.

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‘Do Apes Have Language’ Sue Savage-Rumbaugh http://whyfiles.org/058language/ape_talk.html

Dyslexia, Sally Shaywitz, Scientific American, 11/96, p. 98 ff. Giving Language Skills a Boost, Marcia Barinaga, Science, 5 Jan. '96, pp. 27-8.

Infants Remember the Order of Words in a Spoken Sentence, Denise Mandel et al, Cognitive Development, April-June 1996, pp. 181-96.

Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Roger Lewin, 1995, John Wiley and Sons, New York.

The Language of Animals, Stephen Hart, Henry Holt, New York, 1996.

"My best friend is a chimp" Roger Fouts. Psychology Today. New York: Jul/Aug 2000. Vol.33, Iss. 4;  pg. 68, 6 pgs

Next of Kin, Roger Fouts, Ph.D. (Bard, 1997)

Statistical Learning by 8-month-old Infants, Jenny Saffran et al, Science, December, 1996, v. 274, pp. 1926-8.

Teaching Sign Language to Chimpanzees. R. A. Gardner, B.T. Gardner and `h. E. Van Cantfort (SUNY Press, 1989)

Word Segmentation: The Role of Distributional Clues, Jenny Saffran et al, Journal of Memory and Language, Aug. 1996, pp. 606-621.

Bees

Taken from the Department of Entomology: NY State University:

http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/entomology/apiculture/Dance_language.html, 1/10/07

Anatomy of A Controversy: The Question of a "Language" Among Bees.” Wenner, Adrian M. and Patrick H. Wells. 1990Columbia University Press, New York, 399 pp.

Bees: Their Vision, Chemical Senses, and Language. Frisch, Karl von. 1976 Cornell University Press, Revised Edition, Ithaca, N.Y., 157 pp.

The Dance Language and Orientation of Bees. Frisch, Karl von. 1967; The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 566 pp.

The Wisdom of the Hive: The Social Physiology of Honey Bee Colonies; Seeley, Thomas D. 1995.. Harvard University Press.

Parrots

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"THAT DAMN BIRD" [9.23.03] A Talk with Irene Pepperberg Marc D. Hauser, Marc D.; http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/pepperberg.html 1-10-07

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Homework

Read: Read ALL the texts below

Academic Reading and How to Make Notes M.E. Clinton

The Clever Hans Phenomenon from an Animal Psychologist’s Point of ViewHeini K.P. HedigerPDF file

WriteUsing the templates in your Academic Reading and How to Make Notes do the note

taking exercises.

Analytical Though

Consider how far animals have language as opposed to communication. What do you

think makes us different from animals other than things at a surface structure level

(i.e. clothes etc).

Come prepared next week to argue with three points either:

agreeing that man is unique

or

disagreeing, we are not unique just part of the animal continuum.

Next week will be a tutorial, so any aspect that you have not understood (do not say

everything) can be discussed in this format.

Enjoy, do not get too bogged down. The academic reading is there for you to get used

to academic reading. Read it but not all in one sitting.

Mary.

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Robert Mannell (1999)

The claim, often repeated by linguists, that we can potentially produce an infinite number of sentences in a language, is not strictly true. For such a claim to be true there must either be the possibility of sentences of infinite length or there must be an infinite number of words in the language. Of course, neither of these requirements are possible for any human language (or for any imaginable communication system made up of discrete word-like units of meaning). We will examine the "infinite sentences" claim for English. If we assume:-

that English has about 500,000 words (there are about 450,000 in the 20 volume Oxford English Dictionary, but this excludes many colloquial forms - although it does include many obsolete forms),

that English sentences can be up to 100 words in length (a fairly reasonable working assumption) that any individual word can occur 0 to 100 times in a single sentence (an unrealistic assumption) that words can be combined in any order (a false assumption)

then we can determine that there could be as many as about 10570 possible sentences (very much greater than estimates of the number of atoms in the observable universe). Grammatical rules would greatly reduce this number of sentences, as would the requirement that all sentences be meaningful, but the resulting number of possibilities would still be extremely large (more than could ever be spoken in the entire history of human languages let alone during the much shorter life span of an individual language). So for all practical, non-mathematical, purposes we can say that the English language, or any other living language (1), is an open system. It's actually quite easy to come up with a unique, never before produced, sentence. To do so, for example, combine an unlikely (or impossible, or meaningless) event with a particular named person on a particular date. For example: "On 31st October 1999, whilst writing a lecture on animal communication, Robert had a colourless green idea." (2) Once this sentence has been written or spoken, subsequent productions of this same sentence are not unique, but unique sentences may potentially be generated from it by making slight changes to it (eg. change "green" to "red").

If we consider spoken language, then we would come to a similar conclusion if we examine only the word content of spoken sentences. We might additionally consider the manipulation of vocal resonance (frequencies of spectral peaks), vocal pitch (fundamental frequency), vocal

NFINITE NUMBER OF SENTENCES

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loudness (intensity), rate of utterance and the placement and timing of pauses that occur as a consequence of the combined effects of prosody, vocal emotion, and size, age and gender differences. There are potentially an infinite number of infinitesimally different productions of any

sentence (infinitesimal differences of frequency, intensity and timing). It is well known, however, that the human brain is only able to discriminate discrete (step-wise) changes in each of these dimensions. Across the possible human vocal range of these acoustic dimensions there is only a finite number of discriminable (just noticeable) steps. Additionally, it is also well established that meaningful changes in each of these dimensions tend to involve significantly larger changes than those changes that are just noticeable perceptually. This means that all of the meaningful vocal nuances of all of the possible sentences in English would be a large, but finite, number.

1. A "living language" is a fully operational language being passed on to a new generation. Some people also require that it be the first language of at least some speakers. This second requirement ensures that it isn't merely being transmitted as a fragmentary partial language (isolated words and phrases).

2. When Noam Chomsky came up with his famous sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" it was also, as Chomsky suggested, extremely likely to have been a unique, never before produced, sentence. (Chomsky, Noam (1957). Syntactic Structures. The Hague/Paris: Mouton)

Robert Mannell (1999)

The aim of this lecture (1) is to examine the following questions:-

1. How do the forms of communication used by animals differ from human language?2. Can animals be taught to use languages that are analogous to or the same as human language?

Pearce (1987, p252) cites a definition of animal communication by Slater (1983, see Pearce for reference), which we will also use as a working definition in this lecture:-

FootnoteANIMAL COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGENatural Animal Communication

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Animal communication is "the transmission of a signal from one animal to another such that the sender benefits, on average, from the response of the recipient".

This loose definition permits the inclusion of many types of behaviour and allows "communication" to be applied to a very large range of animals, including some very simple animals.

Natural animal communication can include:-

Chemical signals (used by some very simple creatures, including protozoa) Smell (related to chemical signals, eg. pheromones attract, skunk secretions repel) Touch Movement Posture (eg. dogs, geese) Facial gestures (eg. dogs snarling) Visual signals (eg. feathers) Sound (eg. very many vertebrate and invertebrate calls)

Such signals have evolved to:-

attract (especially mates) repel (especially competitors or enemies) signal aggression or submission advertise species warn of predators communicate about the environment or the availability of food

Such signals may be:-

instinctive, that is genetically programmed learnt from others

Go Higher ArtsIntroduction to Language

Some linguists (eg Chomsky, 1957, Macphail, 1982, both cited in Pearce, 1987) have argued that language is a unique human behaviour and that animal communication falls short of human language in a number of important ways.

Chomsky (1957) claims that humans possess an innate universal grammar that is not possessed by other species. This can be readily demonstrated, he claims, by the universality of language in human society and by the similarity of their grammars. No natural non-human system of communication shares this common grammar.

Macphail (1982, cited by Pearce, 1987) made the claim that "humans acquire language (and non-humans do not) not because humans are (quantitatively) more intelligent, but because humans possess some species-specific mechanism (or mechanisms) which is a prerequisite of language-acquisition".

Some researchers have provided lists of what they consider to be the criteria that animal communication must meet to be regarded as language.

For this lecture the list devised by Hockett (1960) is utilised, although this list is not the only such list available. Such lists tend to be quite similar and certain elements of the Hockett list are considered particularly important in evaluating the question "can animals be taught language?"

Hockett's thirteen "design-features" for language are as follows:-

1. Vocal-auditory channel: sounds emitted from the mouth and perceived by the auditory system. This applies to many animal communication systems, but there are many exceptions. Also, it does not apply to human sign language, which meets all the other 12 requirements. It also does not apply to written language.

2. Broadcast transmission and directional reception: this requires that the recipient can tell the direction that the signal comes from and thus the originator of the signal.

3. Rapid fading (transitory nature): Signal lasts a short time. This is true of all systems involving sound. It doesn't take into account audio recording technology and is also not true for written language. It tends not to apply to animal signals involving chemicals and smells which often fade slowly.

Language

Go Higher ArtsIntroduction to Language

4. Interchangeability: All utterances that are understood can be produced. This is different to some communication systems where, for example, males produce one set of behaviours and females another and they are unable to interchange these messages so that males use the female signal and vice versa.

5. Total feedback: The sender of a message also perceives the message. That is, you hear what you say. This is not always true for some kinds of animal displays.

6. Specialisation: The signal produced is specialised for communication and is not the side effect of some other behaviour (eg. the panting of a dog incidentally produces the panting sound).

7. Semanticity: There is a fixed relationship between a signal and a meaning. 8. Arbitrariness: There is an arbitrary relationship between a signal and its meaning. That is, the signal, is related to the meaning by

convention or by instinct but has no inherent relationship with the meaning. This can be seen in different words in different languages referring to the same meaning, or to different calls of different sub-species of a single bird species having the same meaning.

9. Discreteness: Language can be said to be built up from discrete units (eg. phonemes in human language). Exchanging such discrete units causes a change in the meaning of a signal. This is an abrupt change, rather than a continuous change of meaning (eg. "cat" doesn't gradually change in meaning to "bat", but changes abruptly in meaning at some point. Speech loudness and pitch can, on the other hand be changed continuously without abrupt changes of meaning.

10. Displacement: Communicating about things or events that are distant in time or space. Bee dancing is an example of this. 11. Productivity: Language is an open system. We can potentially produce an infinite (2) number of different messages by combining the

elements differently. This is not a feature of, for example, the calls of gibbons who have a finite number of calls and thus a closed system of communication.

12. Traditional transmission: Each generation needs to learn the system of communication from the preceding generation. Many species produce the same uniform calls regardless of where they live in the range (even a range spanning several continents). Such systems can be assumed to be defined by instinct and thus by genetics. Some animals, on the other hand fail to develop the calls of their species when raised in isolation.

13. Duality of patterning: Large numbers of meaningful signals (eg. morphemes or words) produced from a small number of meaningless units (eg. phonemes). Human language is very unusual in this respect. Apes, for example, do not share this feature in their natural communication systems.

Click here to see a table that examines the extent to which various communication systems meet these 13 design features.

Go Higher ArtsIntroduction to Language

It seems well established that no animal communication system fulfils all of the criteria outlined by Hockett (1960). This is certainly true for the apes. It is also true for most other species such as parrots and may also be true for animals such as dolphins, who have a complex communication

system which involves a complex combination of various sounds.

Why try to teach a human-like language to another species?

Just because a species doesn't have such a communication system in the wild doesn't necessarily prove that they are incapable of using one.

What kind of language should we teach these animals?

We must avoid using features of human language that are physiologically difficult or impossible for the animal to manage.

For example, spoken human language is extremely difficult or impossible for most animals because of the structure of their vocal organs. Apes, for example, can't produce a large proportion of the vowels and would have difficulty with some of the consonants. This may be due not only to the shapes of the vocal organs but also to the limitations of the motor centres in the brain that control these organs. We might attempt, on the other hand, to teach apes language that involves them using their hands (eg. sign language or the manipulation of symbols).

Some birds, such as certain parrots and the Indian Hill Mynah, are able to mimic human speech with great clarity. We could, therefore, attempt to teach such animals spoken human language.

Dolphins cannot be taught either type of language but may be able to understand sounds or gestures and to respond by pressing specially designed levers.

What do we test for?

Animal communication systems generally lack one or (usually) more of the following features:-

Teaching Language to Apes(and other animals)

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Semanticity Arbitrariness Discreteness Displacement Productivity

Most researchers attempting to teach language to animals are attempting to test for the existence of these features in the "language" use of their subjects.

Projects with Apes

The ape species include gorilla, chimpanzee, bonobo (a distinct species of chimpanzee) and the orangutan. Apart from some very early attempts to teach spoken language to chimpanzees (generally resulting in the production of no more than 3-4 words) language production training has involved the use of the hands, either through the manipulation of symbols or through the use of sign language. Comprehension training has involved these types of language as well as training in the comprehension of spoken language.

Here are some of the most important studies on apes and language:-

Gardner and Gardner (1969)Chimpanzee (Washoe)American sign language

Patterson (1978) Gorilla (Koko)Sign language

Premack and Premack (1972)Chimpanzee (Sarah and others)Plastic symbols

Go Higher ArtsIntroduction to Language

Terrace et al (1979)Chimpanzee (Nim Chimpsky)Symbols

Rumbaugh and Savage-RumbaughChimpanzee (Sherman and Austin)Symbols on a keyboard

Savage-RumbaughBonobo Chimpanzee (Kanzi, Panbanisha)Understanding spoken languageSymbols on a keyboard

There are some web pages that you might wish to look at. They describe the work of Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and colleagues. They include:-

Great Ape Trust , Iowa, USA A 1995 New York Times article entitled "Chimp Talk Debate: Is it really language?", by George Johnson A British newspaper report (July, 1999) describing the use of a speech synthesiser interfaced to the bonobos' keyboards.

Projects with Birds

Projects with birds usually involve parrots or the Indian Hill Mynah. These birds are selected for their ability to mimic human speech. The African Grey Parrot and the Indian Hill Mynah are generally considered to be the birds with the greatest ability to mimic human speech patterns but a number of other species (mainly parrots such as the budgerigar) can be trained to "speak".

PepperbergAfrican Grey Parrot (Alex)Spoken "language"

Here are a few web pages that discuss the work of Irene Pepperberg and colleagues with Alex the African Grey Parrot.

Go Higher ArtsIntroduction to Language

The Alex Foundation research page (links to various papers and a short movie) "Studies to determine the intelligence of African Grey Parrots" , Irene Pepperberg, 1995

Projects with Cetaceans

Cetaceans, such as whales and dolphins, have been shown to be readily trainable to respond to gestures and sometimes to verbal and other acoustic commands. Also, many species have very complex acoustic communication systems. It has been hypothesised that it may be possible to train them to understand language encoded in either gestures or appropriate acoustic signals. Appropriate acoustic signals are assumed to be sounds that are similar to the natural communicative sounds that these animals produce. In the project listed below, one dolphin was trained on gestures and the other with sounds. (refer to chapter 8 of Pearce (1987) for a description of this project).

Herman, Richards and Wolz (1984)Dolphins (Akeakamai and Phoenix)Gestures (Akeakamai)Sounds (Phoenix)

1. Bindra, D.; Patterson, F.G.; Terrace, H.S., Petitto, L.A., Sanders, R.J., and Bever, T.G., (1981), "Ape Language", Science, 211, 86-88. (3) 2. Brakke, K.E., & Savage-Rumbaugh, E.S., (1996), "The development of language skills in pan - II. Production", Language &

Communication, Vol.16, No. 4, pp. 361-380. 3. Chomsky, N., (1957), Semantic structures, The Hague: Mouton 4. Frisch, K. von, (1962), "Dialects in the language of bees", Scientific American, (also published in:- Wang, W. S-Y., (ed.), (1982), Human

communication: Language and its psychobiological bases, Scientific American) 5. Gardner, R.A. & Gardner, B.T., (1969), "Teaching sign language to a chimpanzee", Science, 165, 664-672. 6. Hockett, C.F., (1960), "The origin of speech", Scientific American, (also published in:- Wang, W. S-Y., (ed.), (1982), Human

communication: Language and its psychobiological bases, Scientific American) 7. Macphail, E.M., (1982), Brain and intelligence in vertebrates, Oxford: Clarendon8. Patterson, F.G. (1978). "The gestures of a gorilla: language acquisition in another pongid.", Brain and language 5: 72-97.

References

Go Higher ArtsIntroduction to Language

9. Pearce, J.M., An Introduction to Animal Cognition, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1987, Chapter 8, "Communication and Language", pp251-283 (Library call number QL785.P42)

10. Premack, A.J., & Premack, D., (1972), "Teaching language to an ape", Scientific American, (also published in:- Wang, W. S-Y., (ed.), (1982), Human communication: Language and its psychobiological bases, Scientific American)

11. Savage-Rumbaugh, E.S., Murphy, J., Sevcik, R.A., Brakke, K.E., Williams, S.L., & Rumbaugh, D.M., (1993), "Language Comprehension in Ape and Child", Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, Serial No. 233, Vol. 58, Nos. 3-4

12. Sparks, J., (1969), Bird behaviour, London: Hamlin. 13. Terrace, H.S., Petitto, L.A., Sanders, R.J., & Bever, T.G., (1979), "Can an ape create a sentence?", Science, 200, 891-902. 14. Williams, S.L., Brakke, K.E., & Savage-Rumbaugh, E.S., (1997), "Comprehension skills of language-competent and nonlanguage-

competent apes", Language & Communication, Vol.17, No. 4, pp. 301-317.

1. This topic was originally presented as a first year linguistics lecture in early November 1999. The content hasn't been significantly updated since then so it's now very likely to be out of date. A continuing effort has been made, however, to keep external links up to date. In some cases, as external links have ceased to exist, local copies of the affected documents have been made available.

2. Click here for a discussion of the claim that a human language can potentially have an infinite number of sentences.

3. This was not a single paper, but was instead 2 commentaries, one by each of Bindra and Patterson, on Terrace et al. (1979), followed by a response by the original authors.

Footnotes