More notes from Readings in Animal Cognition: Language comprehension vs. production

Knowledge Acquisition and Asymmetry between Language Comprehension and Production: Louis M. Herman and Palmer Morrel-Samuels

"Studies with young children have generally shown that language comprehension precedes and exceeds language production (Fraser et al. 1963; Ingram 1974, Benedict 1979) and that production may involve more complex processes than does comprehension (Bloom 1974; Schiefelbusch 1974). Findings with adults show that receptive vocabularies typically greatly exceed expressive vocabularies, and then when learning a second language adults generally experience greater speed and success in understanding the new language than in speaking it (e.g. Winitz 1981). " 292

They make the general point that these two aspects of language are somewhat distinct, housed in separate portions of the brain (as indicated by specific brain lesions that can knock out comprehension but not fluent grammatical sentence production, or vis versa) that are integrated conceptually.

So this whole discussion about animals being capable (most likely) of receptive skills rather than generative, as is described by Herman and Morrel-Samuels in their paper (NOT THIS ONE) (or more generally language comprehension vs. language production discussion) . . .

On Animal Language by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh

Animal Language: Methodological and Interpretive Issues: Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Karen E. Brakke

Let me first say that this article is excellent. Savage-Rumbaugh is a great writer, at least compared to the other extremely dry and uninteresting things written by her colleagues. She begins the article with an intriguing introduction:

A sea lion takes a frisbee to a hoop after watching a person wave her hands in a certain way. A chimpanzee waves its hands and someone then unlocks a door for it. A parrot looks at a clothespin and says "pegwood." A dolphin touches a paddle after searching its tank when someone makes particular arm movements.Each of the behaviors performed by the animals above is in some way similar to the linguistic skills of the human child. Yet science has been reluctant to conclude that a sea mammal has syntax or that a parrot can name things or answer questions. The chimpanzee shares much of our phylogenetic history, but even its ability to grasp basic linguistic functions has repeatedly come under question (Savage-Rumbaugh et al. 1980; Terrace et al. 1979). Language, as opposed to most human characteristics, is believed by many to set us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Scientists and lay persons alike maintain that homo sapiens is the only species capable of true language, in spit of increasingly convincing evidence that the bio-linguistic substratum for language exists in other primates.

I like this introduction a lot because its kind of how I would have liked to have started an essay on this topic, if I were to write one. So she beat me to it. :) I record it here so I don't inadvertently copy her later on when I want to write something. :)

So the long and short of it is that I will probably photocopy the whole essay because this was one of the best overall reviews and commentaries on the field that I have seen so far . . . very balanced, I think, with insightful considerations on many of the studies that I have read about, comparing and contrasting their methods and what can be reasonably claimed by their results. I feel like one can trust Savage-Rumbaugh's opinions since she does seem so open to criticism and so careful in making statements about the abilities of animals, even given her successes.

Because nonhumans do not normally learn language, they must be taught the skills they acquire. And because they do not usually speak, they must be taught communication systems that do not utilize the primary channel of human language, speech."

She talks about the development of language in children, the way it is acquired, and talks about how it is a "social motivation" to communicate using share reference to "external objects" (270, quoting someone else actually) and that, at first, an infants' communications don't seem very directed at all, or very intentional, but that at some point, the communications become directed at the people they want to communicate to (looking at adults). This is a significant change, and one that she says is instigated, maybe, or at least reinforced by the adults treating these communications as intentional even if they are not. For instance, if a baby reaches up and looks like she wants to be picked up, the adult responds as though she meant she wanted to be picked up, even if that isn't really accurate. Eventually, the baby learns that the reaching gesture is interpreted that way, and can use it if she does want to be picked up.

That is, 'meaning' is imparted to the infant's actions by a caregiver who is already familiar with the communicative and linaguistic conventions of the culture. [ . . . ] Note that not only is the action interpreted by the adult but an intention is attributed to the infant by the adult, regardless of whether or not that intention is initially present in the mind of the infant.

On Inside the Minds of Animals: Response and notes from a Time magazine article

Inside the Minds of Animals - by Jeffrey Kluger in the Science section of Time Magazine, August 16 2010 issue with photos by Finlay MacKay (you can see a small slide show here.)

The article makes me a little sad because it kinds of covers basically everything - from "eroding the ways humans like to distinguish themselves from animals" to the mirror test, and has a big portrait of Kanzi on the front page (the author got to have coffee with Kanzi. :|) He goes into brain size and the cerebral cortex, recent studies with corvids, makes mention of Christopher Bird and his "apt" last name (no one can resist saying this), and talks about consciousness. The article even has a little contiuum of animal intelligence graphic (though at least its not numerical) showing Great Apes and Cretaceans at the top, followed by corvids, social carnivores, herd animals, and bivalves at the bottom. I think it makes me a little sad because it touches on like everything I have read in the past months that I took forever to read and process and take notes about, that i was excited about and seemed novel and cool, and then to see it all published in a neat, easy to read article for mass public . . . it's like. . . "yeah, everyone knows that stuff, Maria. What's so interesting about that?" and makes me feel even less original than I would like to be.

Even so, the article also poses a few new thoughts or at least very well said ones that I like.

One is the description of varying capacities in the chain of organisms.

"Still, most scientists agree that awareness is probably controlled by a sort of cognitive rheostat, with the consciousness burning brightest in humans and other high animals and fading into a flicker--and finally blackness--in lower ones." 38

He also mentions two studies that I hadn't heard of yet -- one that shows how crows will fill a bucket of water that's too low to reach with stones, thus raising the water level so they can drink from it; and another recent (last month) study showing that pigs raised in a "comfortable environments exhibit optimism, moving expectantly toward a new sound instead of retreating warily from it. . . " 38 And he fleshes out the discussion of just why it is that corvids, who lack a cerebral cortex (?) or at least have less of one than higher primates etc., are phenomenally better at tool use than all other nonhumans. He explains that they have a different structure in their brains which very effiently multitask and coordinate so that they can process the same information as higher mammals. (40).

The part about "self and other" (which goes into the mirror tests) actually explains the concept of "theory of mind" incredibly well, at least to me, since I've been fuzzy on what that meant this whole time. He says

"It's easy enough to study the brain and behavior of an animal, but subtler cognitive abilities are harder to map. One of the most important skills human children must learn is something called the theory of mind: the idea that not all knowledge is universal knowledge. A toddler who watches a babysitter hide a toy in a room will assume that anyone who walks in afterward knows where the toy is too. It's not until about age 3 that kids realize that just because they know something, it doesn't mean somebody else knows it also." 41

This is a huge thing to me, because this definition based around possession of knowledge relates to one definition of communication which says that communication is sharing knowledge that the sender posses which is not available to the receiver. (Like. . . I have a sandwich hidden under that chair, as opposed to just pointing at something and labeling it, which the other person knows already). They also talk about how an important aspect of language, which comes naturally to children, is that kids will initiate language in order to tell an adult something the adult doesn't already know, which is different than say Alex the parrot correctly labeling things . . . or even, I think, maybe asking for things. That there is a difference between wanting to tell someone else what is in your mind, and merely responding to stimuli as one is trained to do, and this definition of theory of mind sounds to me like it makes theory of mind a prerequisite for real communication (or language I guess). Which is, actually, what he says in the next paragraph:

"The theory of mind is central to communication and self-awareness, and it's the rare animal that exhibits it, though some do. Dogs understand innately what pointing means: that someone has information to share and that your attention is being drawn to it so you can lear too." I don't know that I agree with the dog pointing thing since I've heard other things about that. They do say, though, that even though apes and other primates don't seem to come "preloaded" with the pointing convention (as was mentioned before), Kanzi started doing it on his own by 9 months, and they suggest its partly b/c he was carried like a human baby, with his arms free, as opposed to in the wild, where he would have grasped onto his mother's fur to hold on at all times and therefore wouldn't even be able to point. Interesting note. 41 Anyway, the author suggests that pointing is one indicator of a "species that grasps theory of mind."

He says that another indicator of theory of mind (which I hadn't heard as such an indicator even though I'm familiar with the studies) is that crows will hide food, watch other crows, move the food, fake-out hide food, etc., indicating that they know that others are distinct from themselves and that they possess knowledge the others do not. Understanding that "another creature has a mind."

Mirror test

Ok, and now for his business on the mirror test.

"The gold standard for demonstrating an understanding of the self-other distinction is the mirror test: whether an animal can see its reflection and recognize what it is. It may be adorable when a kitten sees itself in a full-length mirror and runs around to the other side of the door looking for what it thought was a playmate, but its not head-of-the-class-stuff. Elephants, apes and dolphins are among the few creatures that can pass the mirror test. All three respond appropriately when they look into a mirror after a spot of paint is applied to their forehead or another part of their body." 41

This is a pretty simple way of describing the test, incidentally, which leaves off some of the interesting controls like how they have to be sedated when the mark is applied or have to have a dummy mark without odor, etc. that at least I thought was insightful into the experimental process . . . but probably not necessary.

And also, there is another interesting note regarding language and concepts. The article talks about how the relations-between-relations issue (apple and apple next to a picture of an apple and orange and a banana and banana, which two have the same relationship . . . kind of thing) and apparently "baboons and--surprisingly--pigeons got the relations-between-relations idea" in a study by Ed Wasserman at University of Iowa. "Significantly, just as humans better understand an idea when they have a term to describe it (imagine explaining, say satisfaction if the word didn't exist), so do animals benefit from such labels. Psychologist David Premack of the University of Pennsylvania found that when chimps were taught symbols for same and different, they later performed better on analogy tests." 41

Related to this article was a Time magazine article about animal suicide, regarding that "Cove" movie,

"Jonathan Safran Foer, whose new book, Eating Animals, says [ . . . ] says he recently watched The Cove and, like others, found the references to animal suicide fishy. "We don't need to make animals like humans in order to treat them with decency," he says. "If we just treated pigs like pigs and cows like cows, that would be sufficient.""

I agree with that.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1973486,00.html?iid=sphere-inline-bottom#ixzz0wQWmmU1Q

In the comments section, DavidLaFerney:
The print story seems to ask what it is that sets humans apart from animals.  I think we have a need and a desire to send a message into the future.  Because of that desire we create.  We create language, art, literature, archetecture, empires, fortunes, and families.  We spend our mortal lives sending the message that we exist, we matter - please remember us.

Animals don't seem to have that need."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2008759,00.html#ixzz0wQRRMb1a

And then a bunch of people get mad that Alex the parrot wasn't included, which frankly makes me happy. I don't like Alex that much anyway. :)

Future reading

The article mentions Peter Singer's 1975 "Animal Liberation" which is probably something I should read.

It also suggests reading "Bonobo Handshake" by Vanessa Woods - Insights from a researcher and journalist who lived with bonobos in Africa

and "Comparative Cognition" by Edward Wasserman and Thomas Zentall, eds. "A heavy lift for casual readers, but covers much of the animal world."