Core Studies Summary

Core studies summary Teaching sign language to a chimp (1969) Gardner & Gardner

Aims and context (Put aims of study & background history):
The aimof the study was to answer the question to what extent (how much) might another species be able to use human language? One way to test this was to teach a form of human language to a non-human animal.
Gardner & Gardner aimed to investigate if they could teach a chimpanzee (considered to be a most intelligent and sociable animal) to communicate using a human language, specifically that of American Sign Language.
Context-Language makes us unique as an animal, Chomsky (1965) believes language is unique to humans, other species can’t acquire language, humans have a language acquisition device, animals don’t.
Early attempts to teach chimps to talk were useless, a chimp’s vocal apparatus is unsuited to making speech sounds, however the Gardners felt that chimps can use a non-spoken language like ASL, this language is used by the deaf in America. The Gardners were the first to attempt to teach a chimp ASL.
Bryan (1963) reports that the vocal apparatus of the chimpanzee is very different to that of man. Even though chimpanzees are capable of making many different sounds, vocalization tends to occur in situations of high stress or excitement; when undisturbed, chimpanzees are normally silent. Gardner & Gardner therefore concluded that a vocal language was not appropriate for this species.
Hayes & Hayes (1951) worked extensively with a chimpanzee called Vicki. They aimed to teach her to produce a vocal language, however in their 6 years of work with Vicki, she was only able to make four sounds which approximated to English words.
In the 1960s, the American Linguist Charles Hockett produced a list called the ‘Design Features of Language’. He believed that animal and human communications had some features which were similar, but that even the most basic of human languages contained many features which animal communication did not.
There are problems in how we evaluate findings when we teach a non-human animal to use a language, and this depends on how we define a language in the first place. Hockett (1960) believed there were real qualitative differences between human and non-human language.
Aitchison (1983) concluded that there are 4 criteria which are unique to human language: Only we can do these things: These are:

Semanticity-use of symbols to mean an object or action
Displacement- when we can refer to things not present in time or space
Structure–dependence-the patterned nature of language and correct word order
Creativity- to be able to produce and understand many new ways of saying the same thing, called productivity.

Premack (1971) in a later study got a female chimp called Sarah to use small plastic shapes each of which stood for a word and were arranged on a magnetic board.
Procedures (What did the Psychologists do to the participants?)

A wild caught female chimp had been previously rescued & eventually given to the Gardner’s for research purposes; her age was between 8-14 months.

Detailed records were kept of Washoe’s progress over 32 months.

Her human companions introduced games and activities which would maximize interaction with Washoe.

One person was with her for all her waking hours.

All people who had contact with Washoe had to learn ASL & use it a lot in her presence in connection with interesting activities.

If Washoe used the wrong sign to mean something, the Gardners made the correct sign to her, and repeated this until Washoe copied it herself. Also there was prompting, like pointing at Washoe’s hand or a part of her body that was involved in the signing.

Routine activities like feeding and bathing have been ritualised (done in a certain way each time) & used for signs to be taught.

New objects and new examples of familiar objects have been brought continually to Washoe’s attention in the hope she’d learn the signs.

Tickling Washoe was used as a reward when she signed correctly.

Training methods used by Washoe’s human companions included:

imitation of signs using the “Do this” game.
encouraging ‘babbling’ through clapping, smiling and repeating the gesture.
instrumental conditioning - tickling was used as a reward as this seemed to be the most effective reward to use with Washoe.This meant Washoe would repeat the sign that led to the reward.

When a sign appeared it had to be seen by 3 different observers & had to occur in the right situation and spontaneously i.e. not prompted, the sign was then added to a checklist and so recorded.

2 checklists were filled out, one for each half of the day. A frequency of one appropriate and spontaneous occurrence of a new sign had to happen each day over 15 consecutive days for the researchers to conclude Washoe had learned a new sign.

Perspective ; cognitive
Method: Case study
3 advantages of the methodology: Sample (e.g. representative)
Internal & external validity/internal & external reliability/ethics & any other issues:

The results are reliable as Kanzi another chimp in (1991) also had the ability to show semanticity (knew 200 words) as did Washoe (learned 132 signs) so a form of language can be taught to chimps.

The procedures had high internal validity as the recording of whether Washoe had acquired a new sign was strict e.g. had to be seen by 3 different observers.

The research was conducted under very controlled conditions & all staff fully understood the need for consistency & the following of basic rules such as ‘not speaking language’ around Washoe.This means we can be confident that the training programme led to Washoe acquiring a language of signs. It also means the procedures can be repeated with another chimp to see if the same results are found.

Variables can be controlled e.g. all meaningful sounds she heard had to be ones she could copy.

3 disadvantages of this methodology: Sample bias/validity –internal & external/reliability internal & external/ethics/gender bias/cultural bias & any other issues:

One chimp was tested, the results can’t be generalised to all chimps. This is a case study and so Washoe could be unique to her species e.g. very intelligent.

Washoe was at times pressed too hard to learn signs, so she was not learning signs in her own time, she sometimes bit her tutor, this means the study had low internal validity as the training programme and procedures sometimes went wrong.

The results have low ecological validity because Nim another chimp rarely signed spontaneously, unlike Washoe. Nim almost always required human prompting to sign. This suggests it is unusual for chimps to use ASL and Washoe was quite unique. This could be because the researchers were over-keen for Washoe to sign and thus ‘pushed’ her to learn.

Ethics-Washoe was a wild caught chimp, she as an animal would not have chosen to become involved with this research project, her right to be free was not kept to. Her inability to stand and defend her rights should not be a barrier for humans to recognise that chimps have rights.

Findings and conclusions of the study:

30 signs had met the criteria of occurring each day over 15 days by the end of the 22nd month of the project.

Washoe showed semanticity – learning 132 signs+ after 4 years of intensive training. There was evidence of displacement e.g. she asked for absent objects e.g. ALL GONE CUP/MORE MILK.

Washoe could transfer signs to new members of the same thing e.g. transferred the FLOWER sign to mean an outdoor flower and indoor flower.

Washoe could use combinations of signs-called strings e.g. used 2 or three signs together e.g. GIMME TICKLE.

She did not show conclusive evidence of structure dependence (correct sign order).

Sign language is an appropriate method of two way communication for the chimp.

The ability for Washoe to combine and recombine signs must be tested in the future; the idea is that Washoe will be able to describe events and situations to an observer who has no other access to this information except for Washoe.

Instrumental conditioning- In the early months during play Washoe would indicate wanting more tickling by placing the researcher’s hands on her ribs. The Gardners decided to shape an arbitrary response which she could use for requesting ‘more’ tickling. They noticed that when being tickled she tended to bring her arms together to cover the area being tickled - this appeared very similar to the ASL sign for ‘more’. Washoe soon associated this sign with the resulting tickling.
The training conditions have not been the best according to the researchers. They therefore think her achievements will be succeededby another chimp.
The Gardners believe that a larger body of intensive research needs to go on with other species of animals before we can conclusively say that language is an exclusively human ability.
Conclusion:
The Gardners are wary of answering the question of whether Washoe has language - they imply that there is an element of looking for hierarchy of communication skills. It is a difficult question to answer whether Washoe has language. The fact that Washoe’s signs do not remain specific to their original contexts suggests that she has indeed ‘learnt’ language.
Alternative and complementary research findings:
(See exemplar question)
Evaluation points of the study:
Strengths:

Gives interesting insights into nature v’s nurture debate-it shows that nature is important, as despite intensive training there were things Washoe could not do which humans do e.g. show correct word order, on the other hand she could learn a sign language by imitation and situation so this gives evidence of nurture learning through the environment.

Weaknesses:

Poor mundane realism (is task the same as what would happen in real life?) the way that Washoe was taught to communicate would not be how she would do it naturally and communicate with other chimps.

Experimenter bias-the researchers could have affected how Washoe responded e.g. prompted her to respond a lot, so did she sign spontaneously?

The researchers may also have shown expectancy effects – e.g. encouraging Washoe to sign when she would not have done left to her own devices, so they may have overestimated her signing abilities.

Reductionism-the Gardners used one form of communication i.e. ASL, they could neglect how complex communication in chimps could be, e.g. through facial expression etc, also only one feature of ASL was used that of hand gestures even though there are more parts to ASL e.g. movement. This is reductionist.

Small sample size. Washoe could be an unusual chimp e.g. more or less intelligent, so can’t say how well she really did at using a language.

Subjective-as the Gardners were highly involved with Washoe, they may have lost their sense of objectivity, the whole research was unscientific, a lot of learning and teaching was trial and error and they may have interpreted her behaviour wrongly as showing evidence of understandingsign language, but really Washoe may not have been as clever as they thought.