Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind (15 page)

As is often the case, we learned almost as much from Sherman and Austin’s mistakes as from their successes. For example, on one trial Sherman mistakenly requested a key when a wrench was appropriate for the task, and he watched as Austin began to look over the toolkit in response to the request. Austin picked up the key, and Sherman looked surprised, turned to look at the keyboard, which still showed the
key
request he’d made, and realized his mistake. He rushed to the keyboard and corrected himself by tapping on the wrench symbol to draw Austin’s attention to the changed request. Austin looked up, saw what Sherman was doing, dropped the key, and took the wrench to the window to give to Sherman. Such a sequence is indicative of intentionality and comprehension on the chimps’ part, and cannot be dismissed as the rote result of conditioned response training.

Although these results were extremely pertinent to the ape-language debate, most researchers in the field paid little attention; the supposed primacy of syntax still held them in its thrall. There was, however, an assault from the behaviorist camp, specifically from Robert Epstein, Robert Lanza, and B. F. Skinner, the last being the most prominent figure in behaviorism at the time. In a 1980 issue of
Science
, they published a description of a choreographed sequence of behaviors in two pigeons, Jack and Jill. This sequence simulated communication that, superficially, looked similar to that achieved by Sherman and Austin.

Jack and Jill (both males) were housed in adjoining boxes with a transparent wall between them. Jack pecked a key labeled “what color?” Jill then looked through a curtain to the back of his box to see which of three colored lights was lit. He would then peck the appropriate one of three buttons, labeled R (for red), G (green), and Y (yellow); the pecking action illuminated the button. Jack then pecked a key labeled “thank you,” which resulted in food being dispensed to Jill. Finally, after seeing which key Jill had illuminated, Jack pecked the equivalent one in his box, and was rewarded with a food item. The authors explained that, although the sequence of events might look like “sustained and natural conversation,” it was in fact the result of strict conditioning procedures. They then went on to say that “A similar account may be given of the Rumbaugh procedure.”
¹

It was at first humorous, but later somewhat frightening, to see an experiment of this nature given so much prominence. In reply, Duane and I wrote: “The description of this work seeks to parody ours and deceptively leads all but the most well-informed reader to conclude that, in fact, identical concepts were learned by chimpanzee and pigeon.”
²
Whereas the pigeons had to be taught each step in the sequence and were not required to be aware of what the other pigeon was doing, the communicative behavior between Sherman and Austin emerged from components of true communication, and they achieved it on the first trial, with no training; they also had to be aware of their partner’s actions and of the fact that they were indeed communicating with one another.

One issue that undoubtedly had provoked the behaviorists’ attack was my conclusion that Sherman and Austin were exhibiting conscious intentionality during their communication—a clear red flag to those who believe behavior should simply be viewed as responses to external stimuli. As a result I became labeled a cognitive psychologist—one who believes that there is more to behavior than stimulus-response, and that animals may actually think about what they are doing. Sherman and Austin’s behavior makes a strong argument for this view. I came to see clearly that intentionality must be accepted if we are to understand language in a
functional sense, and tracing the evolutionary emergence of conscious intentionality is crucial to the appearance and understanding of language as it is used by
Homo sapiens
.

We had taught Sherman and Austin key elements of communication—request, naming, and comprehension. Once these were in place, other aspects of communication emerged spontaneously. The chimps began to pay close attention to each other’s communications; they engaged each other before delivering their message; they gestured to emphasize or clarify messages; they took turns. None of these behaviors, all of which enhance communication, was taught by us. Sherman and Austin developed them spontaneously.

Most important of all the communicative behaviors that emerged spontaneously was that of indication, or announcement of intended future action. At the start of one trial session in which I was going to ask Sherman to give me objects I requested, I apparently took too long to begin. To my surprise, Sherman said
straw
and handed it to me. Then he said
blanket
and handed that, too. Next he fingered the wrench, as if he were thinking of it, then said
wrench
and pointed to the tool while looking back and forth between me and the wrench, checking to see if I had noticed the tool to which he was pointing. Initially, my impulse was to discourage Sherman, but soon I realized the importance of the behavior. Announcing an intended action is one of the earliest symbol-use skills to appear in human children, and here it was emerging spontaneously with Sherman. The same skill appeared in Austin, too, and it wasn’t always in trial situations. For instance, on one occasion Austin announced at the keyboard he was going to make a
funny face
, and then stuck his tongue out and pulled his lower lip down over his chin. Comical though the context might have been, it was linguistically important.

The more I observed such behaviors, as Sherman and Austin sat at their tables independent of teachers, communicating their needs and sharing their food, the more their general behavior took on a human countenance. This was not the result of training but of use and development of communicative skills in a social setting. It is true to say that we really didn’t see language
competence in Sherman and Austin until food sharing fully developed, with its exchange of information and subsequent coordination of behavior. It wasn’t a complex language, not a language with syntax. It was more a culture language, a complex set of behaviors that was the way the chimps’ lives were lived in the laboratory. It made one think of
Homo sapiens
without sophisticated spoken language—intelligent, sensitive creatures, able to communicate and coordinate their behavior in a collective subsistence effort. I am not suggesting that what we have with Sherman and Austin is a precise model for a stage in human evolution. But it is easy to see how elements of social/communicative abilities, which are evidently present in our closest relative, the chimpanzee, could have brought about a new social/subsistence regime in our early human ancestors.

In light of the Sherman and Austin project, it is worth considering whether the probable parallel evolution in human prehistory of the skills of symbolization, tool-use, and interanimal communication was accidental. The answer, it seems, is that they are closely linked, within a complex social nexus. In such an evolutionary setting, selection for bigger brains would have been inevitable.

For me, the human countenance of Sherman and Austin’s communication argued strongly that they understood what they were doing. I knew, however, that others would not be equally convinced by expressions. To most people, the wealth of information available from the ape’s face is unreadable; to the unaccustomed eye, in fact, all apes look alike. Thus it was important to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt not only that Sherman and Austin could communicate with each other, but also that they indeed knew that they were communicating. That is to say, we had to demonstrate that Sherman knew what he needed to tell Austin and why, and vice versa.

How could we prove that Sherman knew that Austin did not know which food had been hidden or which tool was needed? Recently, this issue has been given the somewhat confusing
appellation, Theory of Mind. The idea behind this theory is that an important evolutionary breakthrough occurred when our ancestors began to realize that the knowledge that any one person had could differ from the knowledge that others had. Hence, minds were viewed as existing in different states of awareness. When the first individual became cognizant of this, it is said that she developed the theory that others had minds and that other minds differed from her own.

Did Sherman know that Austin’s mind or knowledge state differed from his own? It seemed so; otherwise, why would he bother to tell Austin which tool he needed or which food was hidden in a container? As experimenters, we had set up the contingency that both chimps needed to ask for the correct food. But it was the chimps who began to attend to each other, to coordinate their communications, and to correct each other’s errors. For me, as I watched them, the question was reversed: How could they not know that they were communicating? Yet I knew that most other people would not have the opportunity to watch them as I did and thus would remain skeptical simply out of lack of knowledge.

We could not simply ask Sherman if he knew that Austin’s state of knowledge (or mind) could differ from his own. Consequently we decided to turn off the keyboard to see if they would attempt to communicate their privileged information in some other way. Every bit of training they had received to date revolved in one way or another around using the keyboard to communicate. We felt that if they attempted to communicate at all without it, we would have to conclude that they recognized that the reasons underlying the communicative process had to do with differing states of knowledge and the consequent need to share information.

So we baited a container of food with Peter Pan peanut butter while Austin watched and Sherman waited in the other room. We then took Austin and the container back to where Sherman was waiting in the adjacent room. Knowing that Austin had no sounds or sign at his disposal for communicating, we thought to leave in the room, on the floor, food labels taken off cans, boxes, and bags. The chimpanzees had never used
these labels for communicating, nor had we ever purposefully set about to teach them these manufacturers’ brand labels. Yet they always helped us prepare the food and thus saw the containers with these labels on them many times.

We thought that if they recognized these labels, perhaps they could think to use them as a means of communication if the keyboard were turned off. There were a number of very large ifs to be addressed in this situation. First, would Austin recognize that he needed to tell Sherman what was in the container that he, and he alone, had seen baited, even though the keyboard was turned off? And second, if Austin knew that he needed to communicate to Sherman about the peanut butter, would he recognize that the Peter Pan label, along with many other labels, was lying on the floor of the room? Third, if he recognized the label, would he think to show it to Sherman as a way of telling him the kind of food he had seen hidden? And fourth, if Austin did pick up the Peter Pan brand label and show it to Sherman, would Sherman recognize it and realize that Austin was trying to tell him that it was peanut butter in the container?

Much to our amazement, Austin and Sherman had no difficulty with this situation at all. When Austin found the keyboard was off, he immediately noticed the food labels scattered on the floor and then picked up the Peter Pan label and looked over at Sherman. Sherman stared at it intently for but a moment, then used his keyboard (which was on) to ask for peanut butter. Immediately after this, we took Sherman out to watch a container of food being baited with Welch’s grape jelly and left Austin behind, thus reversing the situation. Sherman tried a bit harder than Austin to get the keyboard to work upon his return, but then, like Austin, he began to look around, noticed the Welch’s grape jelly label, and picked it up and put it in his mouth, with the printed side down. He then proceeded to show it to Austin, not quite realizing that Austin could not see it because it was upside down. Austin did nothing. Sherman shrugged then put the label down, turning it over as he did so. Austin then saw what it said and immediately went to his keyboard and asked for jelly.

We continued to alternate trials in this manner through thirty different foods with manufacturers’ labels, including M&M’s, Jello pudding, Doritos corn chips, and so on. Austin and Sherman knew all thirty of these labels and used them essentially without error, from the very first trial forward, to tell each other the food that they had seen hidden in the container. They did this in spite of the fact that no one had ever taught them that it was possible to communicate using the brand names that manufacturers put on their food, and in spite of the fact that no one had ever taught them anything about communicating that did not involve a keyboard. Why would they have utilized a symbol system no one had taught them unless they recognized the need to share their differential knowledge? Even more intriguing was the question of how they had come to learn what each of these brand names represented, with no training at all. It had taken months for them to learn many of the lexigrams, and yet they knew all thirty of these manufacturers’ symbols with no effort on our part at all. I began to wonder if we had not been using both the wrong symbol system and the wrong approach all along.