Verbal Behavior at a Procedural Level in the Chimpanzee

Abstract

Ape language research has typically employed cognitive descriptions of ape competencies. Recently, Epstein, Lanza, and Skinner (1980) attempted to simulate some of the ape findings with pigeons. They also used cognitive terms to describe their results, but with "tongue-in-cheek." In the hope of bringing about a better understanding of the ape research, this paper describes the main aspects of one ape language project, using a behavior-analytic framework. It then briefly compares and contrasts, from that perspective, the training programs used with pigeons and with apes. It is concluded that the behavior-analytic framework, and the procedures devised to produce language skills in apes, provide strong support for several of the major positions set forth in Skinner's (1957) Verbal Behavior.

Information, information transfer, and information processing

“…For what the research with Sherman and Austin demonstrates is how verbal behavior -that is, what we describe as "verbal behavior" -"emerges from and with nonverbal behavior, and as it does, it provides for a new means of coordinating interindividual object-oriented behaviors" (Savage- Rumbaugh 1986, p. 31). On this line of thinking, the ontogeny of language skills lies, not in a genetic blueprint for "encoding" and "decoding" "mental states" or "representations" using a "generative" system of sounds or signs, nor in a sudden mental shift from "indexical" to "symbolic" comprehension, but rather, in "interindividual interactions [that] come to be coordinated through the use of words" (Savage- Rumbaugh 1986). The psychological problem we are then left with on the dynamic systems approach is: What made Sherman and Austin's communicative development possible?…”

“…Some experiments on language acquisition in chimpanzees have explicitly investigated symbolization abilities in apes (Savage- Rumbaugh 1986;Savage-Rumbaugh & Rumbaugh 1978;SavageRumbaugh et al 1980). These studies make a clear operational distinction between nonsymbolic and symbolic languages.…”

“…Through nearly three decades of articles and books, Beatrix Gardner and I, and our collaborators, have insisted that judicious comparisons between chimpanzee and human intelligence depend on comparable laboratory conditions. Savage- Rumbaugh's (1984) published description of her work with Sherman and Austin seems to contradict the description in the target article. If Savage-Rumbaugh has indeed treated Kanzi with the warmth described in the target article, that would be a step beyond the usual laboratory conditions of caged apes.…”

Editorial Commentary

“…Although I (Macphail 1982;1985a) have used some of these reports as support for the view that pigeons may indeed master problems supposed by many to indicate "higher" processes others have, very reasonably, drawn attention to differences between the analogues and their originals (e.g., Gallup, 1982;Savage-Rumbaugh, 1984). The point is that the (inevitable) differences between the analogues and their originals do not show that pigeons cannot do what chimpanzees can do; this could only be demonstrated by pigeons' failure to perform adequately in an analogue.…”

A Behavioral Look at the Training of Alex: A Review of Pepperberg’s The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots

“…Research continued with a variety of approaches using either topography-based responses (signing) (Fouts, 1973;Terrace, 1979) or stimulus selection based responses (selecting unique symbols) as the speaker and listener behavior in a verbal exchange (Savage-Rumbaugh, 1984). It was in this context that Pepperberg launched her own series of investigations with a parrot.…”