Nim Chimpsky
Encyclopedia
Nim Chimpsky was a chimpanzee
who was the subject of an extended study of animal language
acquisition
(codenamed 6.001) at Columbia University
, led by Herbert S. Terrace.
The validity of the study is disputed, as Terrace argued that all ape-language studies, including Project Nim, were based on misinformation from the chimps. R. Allen and Beatrix Gardner made a similar earlier study, called Project Washoe
, in which another chimpanzee was raised like a human child. Washoe was given affection and participated in everyday social activity with her adoptive family. Her ability to communicate was far more developed than Nim's. Washoe lived 24 hours a day with her human family from birth; Nim at 2 weeks old was raised by a family in a home environment by human surrogate parents to see if he could refute Noam Chomsky's thesis that language is inherent only in humans. Both chimps could use fragments of American Sign Language
to make themselves understood.
Chimpsky was given his name as a pun
on Noam Chomsky
, the foremost theorist of human language structure and generative grammar
at the time, who held that humans were "wired" to develop language.
, so that the linguistic abilities of the apes could be put on a more secure footing.
Roger Fouts
wrote:
"Since 98.7% of the DNA
in humans and chimps is identical, some scientists (but not Noam Chomsky) believed that a chimp raised in a human family, and using ASL (American Sign Language)
, would shed light on the way language is acquired and used by humans. Project Nim, headed by behavioral psychologist Herbert Terrace at Columbia University, was conceived in the early 1970s as a challenge to Chomsky's thesis that only humans have language."
Attention was particularly focused on Nim's ability to make different responses to different sequences of signs and to emit different sequences in order to communicate different meaning
s. However, the results, according to Fouts, were not as impressive as had been reported from the Washoe project. Terrace, however, was skeptical of Project Washoe and, according to the critics, went to great lengths to discredit it.
While Nim did learn 125 signs, Terrace concluded that he hadn't acquired anything the researchers were prepared to designate worthy of the name "language" (as defined by Noam Chomsky) although he had learned to repeat his trainers' signs in appropriate contexts. Language is defined as a "doubly articulated" system, in which signs are formed for objects and states and then combined syntactically, in ways that determine how their meanings will be understood. For example, "man bites dog" and "dog bites man" use the same set of words but because of their ordering will be understood by speakers of English as denoting very different meanings.
"For one thing, they say, there's no syntax — a basic requirement of language. Without combining words and then being able to switch combinations to change meaning, goes the argument, what animals use is more like a code than a language." One of Terrace's colleagues, Laura-Ann Petitto
, estimated that with more standard criteria Nim's true vocabulary count was closer to 25 than 125. However, other students who cared for Nim longer than Petitto disagreed with her and with the way that Terrace conducted his experiment. Critics assert that Terrace used his analysis to destroy the movement of ape-language research. Terrace argued that none of the chimps were using language, because they could learn signs but could not form them syntactically as language, as described above.
Elizabeth Hess's book, Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human (Bantam, 2008) seems to argue against Terrace's project. One critic wrote that "Hess has written about animals and their advocates before (Lost and Found: Dogs, Cats, and Everyday Heroes at a Country Animal Shelter.) She is clearly an animal lover, yet (with a few exceptions) she resists the temptation to demonize the humans in Nim's life."
Terrace and his colleagues concluded that the chimpanzee did not show any meaningful sequential behavior that rivaled human grammar
. Nim's use of language was strictly pragmatic, as a means of obtaining an outcome, unlike a human child's, which can serve to generate or express meanings, thoughts, or ideas. There was nothing Nim could be taught that could not equally well be taught to a pigeon using the principles of operant conditioning
. The researchers therefore questioned claims made on behalf of Washoe, and argued that the apparently impressive results may have amounted to nothing more than a "Clever Hans
" effect, not to mention a relatively informal experimental approach.
Critics of primate linguistic studies include Thomas Sebeok
, American semiotician
and investigator of nonhuman communication systems, who wrote:
Sebeok also made pointed comparisons of Washoe with Clever Hans
. Some evolutionary psychologists, in effect agreeing with Chomsky, argue that the apparent impossibility of teaching language to animals is indicative that the ability to use language is an innately human development.
Project Nim
, a documentary by James Marsh about the Nim study, explores the story (and the wealth of archival footage) to consider ethical issues, the emotional experiences of the trainers and the chimpanzee, and the deeper issues the experiment raised. This documentary, (produced by BBC Films, Red Box Films, and Passion Films) opened the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. The film was released in theaters on July 8, 2011 by Roadside Attractions.
. The Gardners argued that Terrace's approach to training, and the use of many different assistants, did not harness the chimpanzee's full cognitive and linguistic resources. This makes some sense, as it is a common opinion among professional educators that intellectual development does not blossom in an environment bereft of intimate emotional bonds and stability. The hypothetical often cited is to imagine a human child raised in a laboratory with no strong parental bonds being offered snacks as rewards for speaking. It is unlikely, in such an environment, that a child would possess strong communication skills. This is the type of environment Nim was in when the test was conducted.
Roger Fouts
, of the Washoe Project, also claims that Project Nim was poorly conducted because it didn't use strong enough methodology
to avoid such comparisons and efficiently defend against them. He also shares the Gardners' view that the process of acquiring language skills through natural social interactions gives substantially better results than behavioral conditioning. Fouts argues, based on his own experiments, that pure conditioning can lead to the use of language as a method mainly of getting rewards rather than of raising communication abilities. Fouts later reported, however, that a community of ASL-speaking chimpanzees (including Washoe herself) was spontaneously using this language as a part of their internal communication system. They have even directly taught ASL signs to their children (Loulis
) without human help or intervention. This means that not only can they use the language but that it has become a significant part of their lives.
The controversy is still not fully resolved, in part because the financial and other costs of carrying out language-training experiments with apes make replication studies difficult to mount. The definitions of both "language
" and "imitation", and the question of how language-like Nim's performance was, will remain controversial.
, in Texas
. Nim died at the age of 26 from a heart attack.
Chimpanzee
Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
who was the subject of an extended study of animal language
Animal language
Animal language is the modeling of human language in non human animal systems. While the term is widely used, researchers agree that animal languages are not as complex or expressive as human language....
acquisition
Language acquisition
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate. This capacity involves the picking up of diverse capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an extensive vocabulary. This language might be vocal as with...
(codenamed 6.001) at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, led by Herbert S. Terrace.
The validity of the study is disputed, as Terrace argued that all ape-language studies, including Project Nim, were based on misinformation from the chimps. R. Allen and Beatrix Gardner made a similar earlier study, called Project Washoe
Washoe (chimpanzee)
Washoe was a chimpanzee who was the first non-human to learn to communicate using American Sign Language, as part of a research experiment on animal language acquisition....
, in which another chimpanzee was raised like a human child. Washoe was given affection and participated in everyday social activity with her adoptive family. Her ability to communicate was far more developed than Nim's. Washoe lived 24 hours a day with her human family from birth; Nim at 2 weeks old was raised by a family in a home environment by human surrogate parents to see if he could refute Noam Chomsky's thesis that language is inherent only in humans. Both chimps could use fragments of American Sign Language
American Sign Language
American Sign Language, or ASL, for a time also called Ameslan, is the dominant sign language of Deaf Americans, including deaf communities in the United States, in the English-speaking parts of Canada, and in some regions of Mexico...
to make themselves understood.
Chimpsky was given his name as a pun
Pun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...
on Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
, the foremost theorist of human language structure and generative grammar
Generative grammar
In theoretical linguistics, generative grammar refers to a particular approach to the study of syntax. A generative grammar of a language attempts to give a set of rules that will correctly predict which combinations of words will form grammatical sentences...
at the time, who held that humans were "wired" to develop language.
Project Nim
Project Nim was an attempt to go further than Project Washoe. Terrace and his colleagues aimed to use more rigorous experimental techniques, and the intellectual discipline of the experimental analysis of behaviorExperimental analysis of behavior
The experimental analysis of behavior is the name given to the school of psychology founded by B.F. Skinner, and based on his philosophy of radical behaviorism. A central principle was the inductive, data-driven examination of functional relations, as opposed to the kinds of hypothetico-deductive...
, so that the linguistic abilities of the apes could be put on a more secure footing.
Roger Fouts
Roger Fouts
Roger S. Fouts is an American primate researcher. He is co-director of the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute in Washington, and a professor of psychology at the Central Washington University...
wrote:
"Since 98.7% of the DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
in humans and chimps is identical, some scientists (but not Noam Chomsky) believed that a chimp raised in a human family, and using ASL (American Sign Language)
American Sign Language
American Sign Language, or ASL, for a time also called Ameslan, is the dominant sign language of Deaf Americans, including deaf communities in the United States, in the English-speaking parts of Canada, and in some regions of Mexico...
, would shed light on the way language is acquired and used by humans. Project Nim, headed by behavioral psychologist Herbert Terrace at Columbia University, was conceived in the early 1970s as a challenge to Chomsky's thesis that only humans have language."
Attention was particularly focused on Nim's ability to make different responses to different sequences of signs and to emit different sequences in order to communicate different meaning
Meaning (semiotics)
In semiotics, the meaning of a sign is its place in a sign relation, in other words, the set of roles that it occupies within a given sign relation. This statement holds whether sign is taken to mean a sign type or a sign token...
s. However, the results, according to Fouts, were not as impressive as had been reported from the Washoe project. Terrace, however, was skeptical of Project Washoe and, according to the critics, went to great lengths to discredit it.
While Nim did learn 125 signs, Terrace concluded that he hadn't acquired anything the researchers were prepared to designate worthy of the name "language" (as defined by Noam Chomsky) although he had learned to repeat his trainers' signs in appropriate contexts. Language is defined as a "doubly articulated" system, in which signs are formed for objects and states and then combined syntactically, in ways that determine how their meanings will be understood. For example, "man bites dog" and "dog bites man" use the same set of words but because of their ordering will be understood by speakers of English as denoting very different meanings.
"For one thing, they say, there's no syntax — a basic requirement of language. Without combining words and then being able to switch combinations to change meaning, goes the argument, what animals use is more like a code than a language." One of Terrace's colleagues, Laura-Ann Petitto
Laura-Ann Petitto
Laura-Ann Petitto is a cognitive neuroscientist and a developmental cognitive neuroscientist, known for her discoveries involving the language capacity of chimpanzees, the biological bases of language in humans, especially early language acquisition , and bilingualism and the bilingual brain...
, estimated that with more standard criteria Nim's true vocabulary count was closer to 25 than 125. However, other students who cared for Nim longer than Petitto disagreed with her and with the way that Terrace conducted his experiment. Critics assert that Terrace used his analysis to destroy the movement of ape-language research. Terrace argued that none of the chimps were using language, because they could learn signs but could not form them syntactically as language, as described above.
Elizabeth Hess's book, Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human (Bantam, 2008) seems to argue against Terrace's project. One critic wrote that "Hess has written about animals and their advocates before (Lost and Found: Dogs, Cats, and Everyday Heroes at a Country Animal Shelter.) She is clearly an animal lover, yet (with a few exceptions) she resists the temptation to demonize the humans in Nim's life."
Terrace and his colleagues concluded that the chimpanzee did not show any meaningful sequential behavior that rivaled human grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
. Nim's use of language was strictly pragmatic, as a means of obtaining an outcome, unlike a human child's, which can serve to generate or express meanings, thoughts, or ideas. There was nothing Nim could be taught that could not equally well be taught to a pigeon using the principles of operant conditioning
Operant conditioning
Operant conditioning is a form of psychological learning during which an individual modifies the occurrence and form of its own behavior due to the association of the behavior with a stimulus...
. The researchers therefore questioned claims made on behalf of Washoe, and argued that the apparently impressive results may have amounted to nothing more than a "Clever Hans
Clever Hans
Clever Hans was an Orlov Trotter horse that was claimed to have been able to perform arithmetic and other intellectual tasks....
" effect, not to mention a relatively informal experimental approach.
Critics of primate linguistic studies include Thomas Sebeok
Thomas Sebeok
Thomas Albert Sebeok was a polymathic American semiotician and linguist.- Life and work :...
, American semiotician
Semiotics
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
and investigator of nonhuman communication systems, who wrote:
In my opinion, the alleged language experiments with apes divide into three groups: one, outright fraud; two, self-deception; three, those conducted by Terrace. The largest class by far is the middle one.
Sebeok also made pointed comparisons of Washoe with Clever Hans
Clever Hans
Clever Hans was an Orlov Trotter horse that was claimed to have been able to perform arithmetic and other intellectual tasks....
. Some evolutionary psychologists, in effect agreeing with Chomsky, argue that the apparent impossibility of teaching language to animals is indicative that the ability to use language is an innately human development.
Project Nim
Project Nim (film)
-Synopsis:The film focuses on Project Nim, which follows a chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky.-Reception:Project Nim has received an aggregated score of 98% from 114 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes....
, a documentary by James Marsh about the Nim study, explores the story (and the wealth of archival footage) to consider ethical issues, the emotional experiences of the trainers and the chimpanzee, and the deeper issues the experiment raised. This documentary, (produced by BBC Films, Red Box Films, and Passion Films) opened the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. The film was released in theaters on July 8, 2011 by Roadside Attractions.
Objections
Terrace's skeptical approach to the claims that chimpanzees could learn and understand sign language led to heated disputes with Allen and Beatrix Gardner, who initiated the Washoe ProjectWashoe (chimpanzee)
Washoe was a chimpanzee who was the first non-human to learn to communicate using American Sign Language, as part of a research experiment on animal language acquisition....
. The Gardners argued that Terrace's approach to training, and the use of many different assistants, did not harness the chimpanzee's full cognitive and linguistic resources. This makes some sense, as it is a common opinion among professional educators that intellectual development does not blossom in an environment bereft of intimate emotional bonds and stability. The hypothetical often cited is to imagine a human child raised in a laboratory with no strong parental bonds being offered snacks as rewards for speaking. It is unlikely, in such an environment, that a child would possess strong communication skills. This is the type of environment Nim was in when the test was conducted.
Roger Fouts
Roger Fouts
Roger S. Fouts is an American primate researcher. He is co-director of the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute in Washington, and a professor of psychology at the Central Washington University...
, of the Washoe Project, also claims that Project Nim was poorly conducted because it didn't use strong enough methodology
Methodology
Methodology is generally a guideline for solving a problem, with specificcomponents such as phases, tasks, methods, techniques and tools . It can be defined also as follows:...
to avoid such comparisons and efficiently defend against them. He also shares the Gardners' view that the process of acquiring language skills through natural social interactions gives substantially better results than behavioral conditioning. Fouts argues, based on his own experiments, that pure conditioning can lead to the use of language as a method mainly of getting rewards rather than of raising communication abilities. Fouts later reported, however, that a community of ASL-speaking chimpanzees (including Washoe herself) was spontaneously using this language as a part of their internal communication system. They have even directly taught ASL signs to their children (Loulis
Loulis
Loulis is a chimpanzee who has learned to communicate in American Sign Language.Loulis was named for two caregivers at the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was born. After ten months at Yerkes, Loulis was transferred to Oklahoma with Roger Fouts and Washoe,...
) without human help or intervention. This means that not only can they use the language but that it has become a significant part of their lives.
The controversy is still not fully resolved, in part because the financial and other costs of carrying out language-training experiments with apes make replication studies difficult to mount. The definitions of both "language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
" and "imitation", and the question of how language-like Nim's performance was, will remain controversial.
Retirement and death
When Terrace ended the experiment, Nim was transferred to a research lab in Oklahoma and then to a pharmaceutical animal testing laboratory managed by NYU. After efforts to free him, Nim was purchased by the Black Beauty Ranch, operated by The Fund for Animals, the group led by Cleveland AmoryCleveland Amory
Cleveland Amory was an American author who devoted his life to promoting animal rights. He was perhaps best known for his books about his cat, named Polar Bear, whom he saved from the Manhattan streets on Christmas Eve 1977...
, in Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
. Nim died at the age of 26 from a heart attack.
Three-sign quotations
- Apple me eat
- Banana Nim eat
- Banana me eat
- Drink me Nim
- Eat Nim eat
- Eat Nim me
- Eat me Nim
- Eat me eat
- Finish hug Nim
- Give me eat
- Grape eat Nim
- Hug me Nim
- Me Nim eat
- Me more eat
- More eat Nim
- Nut Nim nut
- Play me Nim
- Tickle me Nim
- Tickle me eat
- Yogurt Nim eat
Four-sign quotations
- Banana Nim banana Nim
- Banana eat me Nim
- Banana me Nim me
- Banana me eat banana
- Drink Nim drink Nim
- Drink eat drink eat
- Drink eat me Nim
- Eat Nim eat Nim
- Eat drink eat drink
- Eat grape eat Nim
- Eat me Nim drink
- Grape eat Nim eat
- Grape eat me Nim
- Me Nim eat me
- Me eat drink more
- Me eat me eat
- Me gum me gum
- Nim eat Nim eat
- Play me Nim play
- Tickle me Nim play
Longest recorded quotation
- H.S. Terrace, in his article "How Nim Chimpsky Changed My Mind", quotes Nim's longest sentence as the 16-word-long "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you."
See also
- Ape language
- Generative grammarGenerative grammarIn theoretical linguistics, generative grammar refers to a particular approach to the study of syntax. A generative grammar of a language attempts to give a set of rules that will correctly predict which combinations of words will form grammatical sentences...
(Chomsky) - KokoKoko (gorilla)Koko is a female western lowland gorilla who, according to Francine "Penny" Patterson, is able to understand more than 1,000 signs based on American Sign Language, and understand approximately 2,000 words of spoken English....
- KanziKanziKanzi , also known by the lexigram , is a male bonobo who has been featured in several studies on great ape language. According to Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, a primatologist who has studied the bonobo throughout her life, Kanzi has exhibited advanced linguistic aptitude.- Biography :Born to Lorel and...
- Panzee and PanbanishaPanzee and PanbanishaPanpanzee, often called "Panzee", and Panbanisha, also known by the lexigram , are two apes with whom research is being carried out in the United States. Panzee lives at the Language Research Center at Georgia State University and Panbanisha lives at the Great Ape Trust in Iowa...
- WashoeWashoe (chimpanzee)Washoe was a chimpanzee who was the first non-human to learn to communicate using American Sign Language, as part of a research experiment on animal language acquisition....
Further reading
- Seidenberg, M.S. and Pettito, L.A. (1979). Signing behavior in apes: A critical review. Cognition 7: 177-215.
- Terrace, H. S. (1979). Nim. New York: Knopf.
- Pinker, S., & Bloom, P. (1990). Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13, 707-784.
- Wade, N. (1980). Does man alone have language? Apes reply in riddles, and a horse says neigh. Science, 208, 1349-1351.
- Hess, E. (2008). Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human. New York: Bantam.