First Name: Max
Topic: Science
Title of article:Baboons recognise words on a screen
Length of article: 500 words
Posting #3
Author: CNN wire staff
Date of Publication: 4/13/12
According to a recent study in France, it has been found that Baboons are now able to analyze (to some extent) human language. The monkeys were not actually able to read, but they were trained to be able to distinguish nonsense 4-letter words with real 4-letter words. The study was headed by Dr John Grainger and Dr Joel Fagot, and carried out at a special facility at the Aix-Marseille University. The baboons were never forced to do anything, and actually volunteered themselves for the tests. Test booths were set up, and computers would identify baboons that would decide to leave their social group and venture into the test booths. The test gave a 4-letter word to the baboon, and the baboon would touch a plus sign if the word was an actual word, or touch an oval is the word was gibberish. The test booths would give a treat as a reward, which gave the baboons incentive to volunteer. Dr John Grainger says the volunteer system is important, because the baboons pay more attention when they volunteer to do something. It was estimated that each baboon volunteered up to 61,000 times. One baboon, named Dan, could recognized around 300 words correctly. From these results, it was concluded that monkeys had the ability to understand sequences of letter, what is described as a "fundamental building block of language". They hypothesize that this ability comes from the ability to identify objects in the environment. Thus, despite the seemingly-obvious linguistic skill, the ability to distinguish words was more of an object-identification skill. In addition, it was noted that the monkeys were not actually capable of what we call, "reading". However, this study no doubt has a very big impact on our understanding of monkeys.
I think that this ability to identify words means more than the study makes it seem. A species cannot develop a written language without the ability to distinguish sequences of symbols, so this achievement definitely opens up the possibility that monkey could create a written language. In addition, I thought it was extremely interesting to learn that the test was completely voluntary. To be able to link the recognition of words with the award of food is, I think, in itself an achievement. This study leads me to wonder whether or not baby baboons could be taught to recognize even more words, because Dan was able identify 300 words, and at least in the human race, younger humans learn faster.
It is extremely clever of these scientists Dr.John Grainger and Dr. Joel Fagot of the Aix-Marseille to use operant conditioning, specifically the treats, as a method of getting the baboons to volunteer. However, as for the test itself, I am honestly a little bit skeptical of how accurate this study truly supports the theory that baboons can analyze, to some extent, the human language. My reason for this is because the test procedure consists of the baboon really only having two choices - the plus sign or the oval. Therefore, the possibility of the baboon pressing the correct button is pretty high. As mentioned in the article, the monkeys were not actually capable of what is considered reading, and were seemingly more driven by desire for a treat. Furthermore, at first glance it was impressive to read that one baboon named Dan was able to recognize 300 words correctly. HOWEVER, the article also states that each monkey volunteered up to 61,000 times. So really how impressive is recognizing 300 words if this test was conducted thousands of times on ONE monkey? Perhaps I am a stubborn pessimist who has not read the details of this study that explains how it has impacted our understanding of monkeys. But the conclusion that baboons established the fundamental building block of language based on their ability to identify objects in the environment does not seem like a unique skill that other animals do not possess.
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone could clearly make a statement on the scientific findings of this study one way or another. The evidence that baboons can actually recognize actual words of a certain language (it was unclear whether the language studied was French or English) is inconclusive. Firstly, how do they know which words are correct and which are gibberish? If they do not have the capability to comprehend the meaning of the word then they do not understand the significance of the combination of letters. This study was simply proving their capability to recognize patterns. One could potentially propose that a baboon could recognize the patterns of colors or shapes, for example "green, blue, red" or "triangle, circle, square" as correct. Also the probability of a monkey pressing the one correct button out of two 61,000 times is pretty high at 50 percent. I think a long term study of these animals would be more accurate and effective in learning about their capacity for language. The study done at Stanford with Koko the gorilla was done over several decades and concluded that gorillas had the mental capacity for language about the same as a human toddler. This was done through extensive studies that tested her comprehension and association of words with picture and real life objects. It's quite possible that if the same types of studies were done on baboons we could be able to verify this particular experiments findings.
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