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Flashcards by DauntlessAlpha, updated more than 1 year ago
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Created by DauntlessAlpha
over 10 years ago
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| Question | Answer |
| How is animal communication distinguished from human language? | All animals have systems of communication but there are 13 characteristics that distinguish human language from animal communication know as design features of language produced by Hockett – some examples include interchangeability (send and receive messages), semanticity, productivity, learning (acquisition) and transmission (to next generation). This is important as human cultures use language but to what extent are humans qualitatively different from animals? |
| How does Chomsky (1957) argue that LADs make human language different to humans? | Chomsky (1957) argued that humans have a special part of their brain (the “language acquisition” device/LAD) that means we’re biologically programmed to acquire language – this explains why even primitive humans around the world as well as children are able to acquire language so quickly – this view also suggests that animals shouldn’t be able to acquire language. |
| What did Hayes and Hayes (1952) do with a chimp called Vicki? | Hayes and Hayes (1952) worked with a chimpanzee called Vicki and aimed to teach her vocal language and after 6 years. Vicki could only make 4 sounds resounding English: mama, papa, cup and up. |
| How did Premack and Premack (1966) raise the chimp Sarah? | Premack and Premack (1966) raised a chimp called Sarah who they taught to use different coloured and shaped chips to represent words, which she placed on a board to make sentences. Sarah required 130 signs and could make sentences of up to 8 units long and although she didn’t spontaneously ask questions, she did practice sentences alone. |
| What did Bryan (1963) state about the vocal apparatus of a chimp? | Bryan (1963) reported that a chimp’s vocal apparatus is different to a humans and that vocalization only occurs when they’re highly stressed/excited and when they were undisturbed, they were silent and therefor G+G concluded that a vocal language was not appropriate for this species. |
| What did this lead G+G to conclude that was supported by Yerkes (1963)? | Yerkes (1963) also found that laboratory chimps are capable at using their hands to solve manipulatory mechanical problems which makes them suited for sign language |
| How did ASL relate to what G+G aimed to do with a chimp? | G+G aimed to investigate if they could teach a chimp to communicate using ASL and to raise the chimp like a child so that the acquired language naturally. |
| Why are chimps suitable for this study and why sign language? | Chimps are suitable for this study as they are intelligent, sociable (prime motivator for language) and are known for their strong attachment to humans. They decided to use sign language as previous research shows chimps don’t have vocal apparatus and they are good with their hands |
| How old was the wild, female chimp Washoe when she arrived? | A case study was done on a wild female infant chimp called Washoe who was approximately 8-14 months old when she arrived at G+G's lab and chimps are completely dependent until the age of 2 |
| What was the initial focus of the research? | During the first few months, the focus was on building a daily routine and relationships with several human companions who cared for her in shifts and brought her up the same way as a child (as it's only under these conditions that she'll acquire language) where there was always at least 1 companion who were her friends/playmates and they introduced games for maximum interaction |
| What was common of all the companions? | All companions were able to use ASL (American Sign Language) |
| What is ASL? | American sign language - consists of manual gestures that corresponds to particular symbols and words/concepts (words can be arbitrary or iconic) |
| What period does the core study article cover and what criteria had to be met in order for a sign to count as learnt? | The core study article covers a 22 month period where a record was kept of Washoe's language acquisition and each new sign had to fulfill certain criteria before it counted as a learnt sign: 3 different observers had to report seeing Washoe use the sign language spontaneously and appropriately and the sign had to be recorded every day over a 15-day period |
| How was imitation used as a training method and was it successful? | One of the training methods they used were, imitation of signs where a trainer says "do this" and the chimp was meant to imitate specified act for the reward of being tickled but this was unsuccessful with Washoe as she imitated gestures but not on command |
| Why was prompting unsuccessful? | They also used prompting (imitations used as a method of prompting) but Washoe lapsed into "poor diction" where she used a sign sloppily and then she'd be shown the correct sign which she'd imitate |
| How were games/activities adapted to develop Washoe's vocab? | They also used signs where during games/everyday activities were named with appropriate signs and therefore Washoe would hopefully associate the sign with the object/activities - Washoe understood a large vocabulary of signs. |
| Why did they encourage babbling? | They also encouraged babbling which is an important stage in human speech development when infants practise speech elements so it's important for Washoe to manually babble and she was encouraged by repeating the babble back and linking it to actual signs. |
| How was operant conditioning used? | They also used operant conditioning where they used rewards to increase the likelihood of behaviour being repeated |
| How were shaping and direct tuition used? | They also used shaping where they were rewarding her initially for a sign that was similar to the actual one and then gradually only rewarded for closer approximations. Direct tuition was also used where the tutor forms Washoe's hands into the right gesture and then she repeats this |
| Give examples of words Washoe used in specific ways | Washoe used some words in specific ways - examples of these were: more (when asked to continue or repeat activity), drink (for a drink), sorry (for biting someone/being mischievous), baby (for dolls) and please (when asking for object/activity). |
| How many signs had she acquired at 7 months, 14 months and 21 months? | At 7 months she acquired 4 signs, at 14 months she'd acquired 13 signs and at 21 months she'd acquired 30 signs. |
| What did Washoe learn in 22 months? | Washoe learned 30 words and 22 months in 3 ways which were similar to a child's acquisition of language |
| What were the one of the 3 ways that Washoes's acquisition of language were similar to a child's acquisition? | One of the ways was differentiating where she learnt to use the sign for flower to include reference to odors (e.g. when smelling cooking). |
| What did G+G teach Washoe about smell? | G+G taught Washoe a new sign for smell using passive shaping and prompting and she learned to discriminate between 2 signs although she did misuse flower in a "smell" context |
| How did Washoe use and tranfer and combine signs? | Another way that Washoe resembled the way human children learn is transfer were she learned to generalize from one particular thing to a general class of objects e.g. when hearing a dog bark she signed "dog" (not just from seeing a dog). She also combined signs like children - when she had learnt 8 signs, she combined signs to represent complex meanings such as "listen dog" (dog barking). |
| Give an explanation for Washoe combining signs | This could be due to researchers combining signs themselves but Washoe did produce her own combinations e.g. "open food drink" for open the fridge. |
| Why were G+G wary about answering whether or not Washoe had learnt language? | G+G were wary of answering whether or not Washoe had learnt language as it can only be answered if there's a clear way to distinguish between communicative behaviour and language. |
| What did G+G's study show about sign language and chimps? | G+G's study did show that chimps can be taught sign language and Washoe also showed that more could be accomplished as she could spontaneously transfer signs and combine 2-3 words together. |
| What was a challenge of the study? | A challenge of the study was to develop a reliable way to demonstrate Washoe was using sign language in a meaningful way. |
| Why was the case study format of G+G's research a strength? | A case study was conducted on Washoe – this provides in-depth qualitative data, which gives real insight into her progress in learning sign language. Also because it’s a case study, the complex interaction of many factors can be studies and it’s not strictly controlled like a lab |
| Why was the case study format of G+G's research a weakness? | A disadvantage of this method is that it’s difficult to generalize from Washoe’s case, as it’s so specific to her and Washoe could have just been clever so her being a participant in this doesn’t make it representative. |
| How does G+G's research have high reliability? How it the reliability decreased? | In order for a sign to be counted as learned, Washoe had to sign it independently for 15 consecutive days and all three researchers had to see her using it which means results has inter-rater reliability, a high consensus and therefore high reliability. However it’s a difficult experiment to replicate so reliability is reduced |
| How does researcher bias affect G+G's research? | Also findings may lack objectivity as researcher bias is quite likely – Washoe lived with the Gardeners and they may have exaggerated what Washoe was doing and interpreted signs more favorably decreasing validity of results |
| How is ecological validity decreased in G+G's research? | Ecological validity is also low as the environment that Washoe was placed in wasn’t natural for a chimp so even though results may show that chimps have the capacity to acquire language it’s not going to happen in the wild making it unrealistic. |
| How is internal validity decreased in G+G's research? | Another major problem with the method was that the chimp may have just been responding to G+G’s cues and not spontaneously responding herself which decreased internal validity. |
| What were the ethical issues of G+G's research? | There are also ethical issues involved in this study. Is it fair to take a chimpanzee out of the wild from her natural habitat merely to satiate intellectual curiosity? She was taken away from her mother causing both her and her mother distress. As an animal Washoe obviously can’t give consent and it’s unfair to subject her to a lifetime of being observed in an environment that’s not natural for her and constantly expecting something of her (learning new signs) just for the sake of an experiment even if it may give us measurement of the acquirement of human communicative capacities in an animal similar to us. She also had no other chimp company and had no right to withdraw |
| What were G+G's (1989) findings? | 1. Gardner and Gardner et al (1989) SUPPORTS cross-fostered other chimps called Maja, Tatu + Dar; raised in similar way but with new improvements chimps all new born; arrival staggered so grew up like siblings = provided company and role models for one another = more naturalistic; no use of operant conditioning as suggested using language gets a reward |
| How do G+G's (1989) findings support G+G? | SUPPORTS G+G's study on Washoe as shows experiment could be repeated and improved, reinforcing chimps can use a form of human language |
| What was found about Loulis? | 2. Loulis DEVELOPS Washoe at CHCI given adoptive son called Loulis researchers didn't sign in front of Loulis (apart from 7 signs) to see if Loulis could be taught it by other chimps acquired 50+ signs by watching other chimps, mirroring children |
| How does Loulis develop G+G? | DEVELOPS: identifies that chimps able to mirror other chimps using language, like human children, can identify sign meanings and use them, like human language |
| What did Terrace (1979) find about Nim Chimpsky? | study done on chimp called Nim Chimpsky; learnt 125 signs, combined them Terrace found Nim couldn't combine words to create meanings, only uttered them after trainers demonstrated it; learning combinations but not the same as language acquisition |
| How did Terrace's (1979) research contradict G+G? | CONTRADICTS: Nim's language different to human child's and suggests that Washoe's language acquisition may have been down to down to imitating previous combinations without using them meaningfully |
| What did Savage-Rumbaugh et al (1986) find? | bonobo chimp named Kanzi learned to use lexigrams (visual symbols meaning words) through interactions with mother who was taught age of 17 months, produced more than 2500 non-imitative combinations word acquisition of 'common' chimps who were less successful |
| How does Savage-Rumbaugh et al (1986) develop G+G's findings? | DEVELOPS: suggests some chimps, perhaps different breeds, have greater propensity for language than others. Also suggests that like human children who sometimes acquire language at different rates, so do chimps |
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