Animal Bodies, Human Minds: Ape, Dolphin, and Parrot Language Skills

Several books chronicle attempts, most of them during the last 40 years, to teach animals to communicate with people in a human-designed language. These books have typically treated only one or two species, or even one or a few research projects.

We have provided a more encompassing view of this field. We also want to reinforce what other authors, for example Jane Goodall, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Penny Patterson, Birute Galdikas, and Roger and Deborah Fouts, so passionately convey about our responsibility for our closest animal kin.

This book surveys what was known, or believed about animal language throughout history and prehistory, and summarizes current knowledge and the controversy around it.

The authors identify and attempt to settle most of the problems in interpreting the animal behaviours that have been observed in studies of animal language ability.

Animal Bodies, Human Minds: Ape, Dolphin, and Parrot Language Skills

by William A. Hillix (Author), Duane M. Rumbaugh (Author)

Editorial Reviews

>From Book News, Inc.

Hillix (psychology, San Diego State U., California) and Rumbaugh (psychology and biology, Georgia State U.-Atlanta) survey what was known or believed about animal language throughout history and prehistory, summarize current knowledge and the controversy that surrounds it, identify and try to settle most of the problems in interpreting the animal behaviors that have been observed in studies of animal language ability, and present their best guesses about where research in animal language will go. Among their topics are methods and problems in language research with nonhuman animals, some primates famous for using sign language such as Washoe and Koko, a cultural approach, bottlenosed dolphins, the parrot Alex, and evaluations of ape language research.

Copyright © 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Product Details

a.. Hardcover: 224 pages

b.. Publisher: Plenum US; 1 edition (December 31, 2003)

c.. ISBN: 0306477394

d.. Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 6.5 x 0.7 inches

e.. Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds.

$135 at Amazon.com

View details at Amazon.com

(Thanks Robert Karl Stonjek at evol-psych)

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Other books by Duane Rumbaugh

Here is a book review:

International Journal of Primatology, Vol. 25, No. 6, December 2004

Animal Bodies Human Minds. Ape, Dolphin, and Parrot Language Skills.

By W.A. Hillix and Duane Rumbaugh

Read the review (PDF)

Voices come alive in this book. Some vocal,most not, the voices belong to chimpanzees, bonobos, a gorilla, an orangutan, dolphins, and a parrot, or more precisely, these creatures in conversation with scientists and other caretakers. Collectively, they support psychologists’ Hillix and Rumbaugh’s view that the abilities of some nonhuman animals meet a good minimal definition of language as “an agreed-upon system of signals that represent things, events, feelings, ideas, intentions, and actions on the environment or on other organisms” (p. 21). The signals must be symbolic, coordinate the activities of individuals, and carry meanings shared within a group. Readers of the International Journal of Primatology who follow current debates about animal language, culture, imitation, and intersubjectivity, will see immediately that there are ≥2 ways one might read Animal Bodies, Human Minds. In the first, Hillix and Rumbaugh are judged to be convincing or not based entirely on the reasonableness of this definition of language. In another, the definition is kept in mind so that the book’s internal consistency can be assessed, but the subjects’ voices are not lost in the rush to decide whether they have language.

I recommend the latter reading, because this book’s great strength is that it transports readers into the sometimes surreal world of interspecific communication, and helps us to realize why it matters so fiercely that we listen to what can be heard there. Here is Hillix on meeting Alex and 2 other African gray parrots in Irene Pepperberg’s ALR lab: “I was acutely aware that humans were not the only intelligences in the room. . . . It does not seem impossible that Alex knows what he knows, but he knows it anyway . . . I wish I could be around when we finally figure out how small brains accomplish so much . . .” (pp. 238, 241).

Hillix’s depth of feeling usually serves the book well because its expression supplements his careful analysis of relevant language skills. In supporting his view that humans could not be unconsciously cueing Alex to give correct responses to verbal questions, for instance, Hillix couples his own experience as a naıve visitor, questioning Alex, with detailed discussion of Pepperberg’s methods. Alex’s skills are impressive; notably, he can label one aspect of an object that has been defined for him by 1–2 other characteristics, as when he correctly answers the question, “What color is the 3-corner wood?”

Primatologists are likely to be familiar already with the results of many of the ape ALR projects, and for us, the value of Animal Bodies, Human Minds lies chiefly in its comparative framework. Methods and results are cross-referenced in discussion of the various projects, so that as the chapters accumulate, the analysis becomes progressively more contrastive and useful. The bonobo Kanzi’s systematic pattern of errors in responding to novel sentences is compared to that for dolphins Ake and Phoenix. We see how the orangutan Chantek’s training was more like the chimpanzee Washoe’s and less like the chimpanzee Nim’s, and how that difference relates to results: Only about 8% of Nim’s signs were uttered spontaneously whereas about 40% were imitations of preceding signs by his trainers; about 37% of Chantek’s signs were spontaneous and only about 3% were imitations. This linkage of rearing methods and successful demonstration of language skills can, in turn, be imported into the chapter on Kanzi and his half-sister Panbanisha, raised in a so-called Pan-Homo culture. Further comparisons are offered in the concluding, overview chapter, in which some of the famous criticisms by Pinker and Wallman are also assessed against the evidence.

Particularly welcome is the linkage of the ALR results with the need to protect animals: “We believe the greatest benefit of studying animal language, or seeing language-trained animals on television or videotape, or reading about them, is that it forces the observer to recognize animal personalities, their near-humanness” (p. 274). I would add that complementary research into naturally-occurring animal communication, for instance the complex patterns of meaning built up in ape-ape vocal and gestural interactions, is valuable in exactly this same way.

At first the dominance of Hillix’s voice, in the singular, is jarring given the natural expectation that the authors will jointly address readers. Sometimes they do, and Rumbaugh also weighs in with his own first-person account, as do ALR scientists Savage-Rumbaugh and Matsuzawa. My most substantive concern is that the authors and invited contributors think carefully about how to avoid handing ALR skeptics ready ammunition. Among other examples: If it’s to be claimed (p. 164) that Kanzi and Panbanisha translate for their non-linguistic mother Matata, and have begun to employ a bonobo Creole of English with each other, why not include some supporting data? Does it help or hurt the authors’ argument to refer, within in 6 lines of type, to Kanzi’s performance on a linguistic test as “astonishing, even earth-shaking,” “more than impressive,” and “mind-boggling” (p. 178)?

(Thanks Barbara J. King)

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Links about Duane Rumbaugh

Questia.com

paulagordon.com

Great ape trust of Iowa

The animal communication project