Cognitive 3: Savage-Rumbaugh

Question 0

What were the PPs?

Answer 0

Bonobos=
•Kanzi: between 1 and 2.5
•Mulika (younger sister)
•Mother Matata was a ‘language chimp’, serendipitously picked up

Chimps=
•Sherman and Austin

Question 1

What was the aim?

Answer 1

To study human language capabilities in Pygmy chimpanzees (Bonobos) through a longitudinal study.
Comparison to normal chimpanzees.

Question 2

How were the utterances recorded?

Answer 2

Indoors: keyboard with geometric symbols (lexigrams) that brighten when touched+voice synthesiser
Outdoors: laminated copy of board ^

Utterances recorded as:
•correct or incorrect English
•spontaneous (no prompt)
•imitation 
•structured (response to questions or requests) 
•must use correctly 9 out of 10 times

Question 3

What were the controls used?

Answer 3

• Total videotape was 4.5 hours
• 2 observers= one scored real time, other from tape
• 100% agreement on correct vs incorrect use of symbols
• use of a mask so facial expressions did not affect utterances

Question 4

What were the formal testing?

Answer 4

• Kanzi 17 months and 46-47 months
• Mulika aged 18-21 months

1. Matching photo to Lexigram
2. Spoken english to photo
3. Spoken English to Lexigram
4. Synthesised language to Lexigram

• 20-40 test items used in each session
• no test item repeated in a session
• test required correct response out of 3 or 4 options

Question 5

What were the results of the formal tests?

Answer 5

KANZI AND MULIKA:
Spoken eng to Lexigram= 65/66
Spoken eng to photo= 56/59
Photo to Lexigram= 55/59
Synthesiser to Lexigram= 51/66

SHERMAN AND AUSTIN:
Photo to Lexigram=
•Sherman 2/30
•Austin 3/30

Spoken eng to photo=
•Sherman 30/30
•Austin 30/30

• Bonobos under spoken eng, chimps can’t
• Bonobos understood was a test and not going to get lexigrams, chimps didn’t
• Kanzi acquired 46 words and produced over 2,500 spontaneous

Question 6

How were the outside tests conducted?

Answer 6

• 55 acres of forest
• 17 food locations
• must go to each location for a specific food type e.g peaches at lookout
• blind test in forest= Kanzi lead a person who had never been in forest before

Question 7

What are some evaluations?

Answer 7

✔️inter rater reliability because of 2 observers
✔️4.5 hour video which researchers weren’t told would be used
✔️high Eco v= took place in natural habitat and serendipitously

Question 8

What are some possible improvements?

Answer 8

• test more bonobos
• different geographical areas
• difference ages
• more complex testing e.g more structured sentences, more and harder lexigrams, ask more questions