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What have studies of Washoe, Sarah, and Kanzi shown about communication in chimpanzees?
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Animal communication
Animals communicate by sending and receiving signals. For example, a mother dingo (Canis lupus dingo) can communicate certain types of information to her pups by using tactile signals conveyed through grooming.
Studies of chimpanzees like Washoe, Sarah, and Kanzi have been central to the debate over whether nonhuman primates can acquire human-like language. While these studies demonstrate that chimpanzees can learn to use symbols or signs to represent objects and actions, the extent to which this constitutes true language remains a subject of intense scientific disagreement.12
- Washoe: Trained in American Sign Language, she learned over 150 signs, using them for nouns, verbs, and requests. She occasionally combined signs into strings, though critics argue these may be imitative or prompted by trainers rather than spontaneous syntactic communication.1
- Sarah: Trained to use plastic tokens as symbols, she demonstrated an ability to associate tokens with specific concepts, such as colors, nouns, and verbs. She showed evidence of understanding that a symbol could represent an object even in its absence.1
- Kanzi: A pygmy chimpanzee (bonobo) who learned to communicate using keyboard symbols without formal food-reward training. Notably, he demonstrated an understanding of spoken English, even when gestural cues from trainers were removed.1
Critics maintain that these behaviors may be instrumental responses to stimuli rather than the abstract, syntactic use of language seen in humans.21