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COGS 143 > Lessons From The Language Studies > Flashcards

Lessons From The Language Studies Flashcards

1
Q

What are the sociological issues surrounding nonhuman language capabilities?

A

language to many is:

  1. sacred
  2. gift from God
  3. what separates us from the beasts
  4. what makes us special
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2
Q

How did Chomsky explain language learning in humans?

A

Humans designed with basic language acquisiton device in brain

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3
Q

Why did the attempts to teach Kelloggs how to speak fail?

A

-do not have human articulatory appartaus (mouth shape, tongue position, sensori-motor coord)

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4
Q

How did scientists decide to go from teaching chimps how to speak to teaching them sign language?

A

notice chimps’ spontaneous use/development of gesture

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5
Q

How did they teach the chimps sign language?

A

some by imitation, mostly involved shaping ape’s hands into signs

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6
Q

What are examples of the multiple species trained in sign language and their names?

A

Chimps (Washoe)
Gorillas (Koko)
Orangutan (Chantek)

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7
Q

What limits dolphins so that they cannot learn sign language?

A

no hands, cannot make gestures

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8
Q

What are dolphins trained for mainly to understand language? What is this an example of?

A
  • trained mainly for comprehension (vs. production of signs/sign sequences)
  • example of species appropriate designs
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9
Q

What other attempts did scientists make to teach dolphins language?

A

imitation of acoustic computer-generated symbols

-started to learn but stopped

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10
Q

What were examples of poor data recording within language studies?

A

animals were home-raised, naturalistic signing day in/out, no record of learning process

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11
Q

What were examples of little to no scientific “controls” within language studies?

A

inadvertent cueing by trainers (i.e. Patterson and Koko), situation-specific associations, etc.

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12
Q

What were examples of poor data reporting in language studies?

A

early studies especially only report successful use of signs, not nonsense or incorrect

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13
Q

What were examples of biased reporting in language studies?

A

Patterson/Koko over-rich interpretations (conversations about death, capture)

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14
Q

What was the critical method shift in language studies?

A

change from sign language to using tokens or keyboards

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15
Q

Why was the critical method shift important for language studies?

A

every “utterance” by trainers and animals is recorded and analyzed, also included blind control w/ Kanzi test and other tests following

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16
Q

How did Premack/Sarah show good ability of semantics within chimps?

A
  • Sarah shown blue triangle as symbol for apple
  • asked “color of”
  • Sarah answers “RED”
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17
Q

Why is Sarah’s response to the color question important?

A

responds based on properties of evoked representation, not perceptual properties of that symbol

18
Q

What are examples of instances of dolphins and apes exhibiting the ability to transfer symbol to novel context?

A

-dolphins, apes can immediately respond to learned symbol for “give ball” in “Is Ball here?” or “What’s this?”

19
Q

What are the exceptions to the transfer symbol task?

A
  • some chimps fail; post route sequence learning, cannot transfer symbol to new task
    e. g. Rumbaugh/Lana and Terrace/Nim (regularity of signing drills, no transfer)
20
Q

What are some examples of novel combinations by apes?

A

using signs to say WATER BIRD = swan; WHITE TIGER = zebra

21
Q

What is an example of semantics?

A

understanding arbitrary word “dog” to represent “dog” although no like features with word to actual symbol

22
Q

Overall, what are the results of semantic tests on cetaceans and primates?

A

overall good evidence for use and comprehension of symbols

23
Q

What is the overall result of syntactical studies for primates and cetaceans?

A

support for some simple aspects, not for more complex

24
Q

What are the results of order effects tests for semanticity?

A
  • dolphins, apes discriminate ROGER TICKLE WASHOE vs. WASHOE TICKLE ROGER
  • can also discriminate put A on B vs. put B on A (map order to spatial relations)
25
Q

What is schema?

A

slot in frame grammar, regularities in position of nouns, verbs, modifiers establish slots

26
Q

What are the results of schema tests?

A
  1. Dolphins can classify objects as named/unnamed
  2. Dolphins/Apes can learn new term from its place (the slot it fills) in familiar sentence frame (i.e. understand “GREY” in presence of old/new colors)
27
Q

What is embedding?

A

subassembly (rarely tested) e.g. “He said that she said that they thought that she wanted to go, but she didn’t”

28
Q

How were dolphins trained to embed concepts?

A

Dolphins trained LEFT HOOP FETCH (Get left hoop) & FRISBEE HOOP FETCH (ring hoop to frisbee) immediately did FRISBEE LEFT HOOP FETCH (bring left hoop to frisbee)

29
Q

What did they dolphins seem to learn from embedding training?

A

learned order: indirect object/modifier/direct object/verb

30
Q

What are the limitations of apes and cetaceans when learning language?

A
  • 250 NH symbol capacity vs. 5,000 H word capacity
  • embedding = shallow
  • imperative limitation vs. Human language more declarative i.e. tell about, direct attention, tertiary
31
Q

What is pragmatics?

A

studies the way context contributes to meaning, social language use

32
Q

What are some examples of studies that used very little social interaction? What made them different from other studies that involved social interaction?

A

Terrace/Nim: trained in control lab setting, large # trainers, little socialization
Rumbaugh/Lana: 1000’s trails, interaction with machine (MACHINE GAVE LANA APPLE) => repetitive understanding
***least successful projects (no symbol learning, no transfer)

33
Q

Most successful projects with primates and language use involved what?

A

emphasis on social interaction

34
Q

What was the Savage-Rumbaugh & Rumbaugh: Sherman & Austin test?

A
  • interactive “Functional Tool task”
  • E baits opaque site, demonstrates and helps Chimp to use tool to extract, share food
  • C immediately entered “Give Wrench”, E enter “Yes, Give Austin Wrench”
35
Q

What were the results of the Interactive Functional Tool Task?

A
  • C given any tool requested, even if wrong – soon reject wrong & re-request other
  • Added new tools, new locations to use familiar terms, quickly learned new terms
  • first trials: asked “name this” about any tool => immediate success
36
Q

What is the interpretation of the results of the functional tool task?

A
  • Conversational use of keyboard -> treat keys as functional symbols
  • approximates neural context of learning
37
Q

True/False: Sherman/Austin did not shift easily between playing the roles during functional tool task.

A

FALSE; Sherman and Austin easily shifted to playing these roles when only one had access to tools and only the other to baited site (would request appropriate tool, give, share food)

would play co-op game even while in same room

38
Q

What was interesting about the end of Gardner and Fout’s Washoe?

A
  • sign language trained
  • taught her offspring signs, molded hands

example of human enculturation

39
Q

What was interesting about Savage-Rumbaugh’s work with Kanzi?

A
  • human raised, extensively language trained, taught to flint, knap, etc.
  • Kanzi passed tests on theory of mind, imitation, does teaching, etc.
40
Q

What was the important implication of work with Boysen’s Sheeba?

A
  • trained with numerals, helps on Greedy Giveaway task

- suggests symbols intervening between animal/treat enables delayed response, rational choice

41
Q

What is the implication of Premack’s Sarah?

A
  • only chimp reliably successful on Analogies

- possible that it is facilitated by having extensive experience with symbols for same and different

42
Q

What can be said about the future of Human Enculturation studies?

A

-effects still not well studied or understood; requires new methods, models!

COGS 143 (17 decks)

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