Kanzi

Communication in Humans and Other Animals
Communication is a basic behaviour, found across animal species. Human language is often thought of as a unique system, which separates humans from other animals. This textbook serves as a guide to different types of communication, and suggests that each is unique in its own way: human verbal and nonverbal communication, communication in nonhuman primates, in dogs and in birds. Research questions and findings from different perspectives are summarized and integrated to show students similarities and differences in the rich diversity of communicative behaviours.
A core topic is how young individuals proceed from not being able to communicate to reaching a state of competent communicators, and the role …show more content…
Kanzi lives at the Great Ape Trust research center near Des Moines, Iowa and has been acquiring communication skills since he was an infant. At first, psychologist Sue Savage-Rumbaugh was trying to teach Kanzi's mother how to use a special keyboard she'd developed to sidestep some of the control problems that had sparked controversies after Koko's training. But it proved to be little Kanzi who was picking up the most knowledge -- and doing it from simply being in the room, not the focus of direct attention. So Savage-Rumbaugh decided to instruct Kanzi in the same way human children learn to pick up language skills. The bonobo spent his days engaged in normal activities with adults who spoke to him and taught him corresponding lexigrams (abstract symbols that represent written words) as the need for them arose. Kanzi proved an excellent student and an eager participant in daily social interactions, learning hundreds of lexigrams and understanding thousands of spoken words. And although he, along with his little sister, Panbanisha, still have their fair share of critics, Savage-Rumbaugh claims they can also understand grammatical concepts, refer to the past and the future, invent figures of speech and imagine how the world must seem from another person's point of …show more content…
Through PRT, primates have been taught to move into transfer boxes when asked, or from one enclosure to another, to allow careful examination of body parts (e.g., inside the mouth, hands, chest), to allow use of a stethoscope to listen to their heart or lungs, and to present the perineum area for parasite testing. Primates have cooperated with diagnostic radiograph procedures, with acupuncture treatments, and with having wounds closely examined and treated with topical medications. Training primates to calmly tolerate restraint (e.g., sitting in a “restraint chair”) can reduce their stress and increase the ease of conducting certain research studies. Many different biological samples can be collected from cooperating primates including urine, faces , saliva, vaginal fluids, semen, nasal fluids, and even blood. Primates have also been trained to allow intramuscular and subcutaneous injections. In some cases training can reduce abnormal behavioural patterns such as pacing, especially if the animals are trained to engage in behaviours that are incompatible with the expression of the abnormal behaviour. Other applications of PRT can reduce aggression within social groups (by using training to reducing competition over food, for example) and reduce aggression toward humans. Experience has shown that trained animals maintain a

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