PSYC 2500 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: American Sign Language, Jean Berko Gleason, Kanzi

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2500
• Professor: Anne Bowker

Document Summary

In 1900, average adolescent vocabulary = 25,000 words. In 2016, average adolescent vocabulary = 10,000 words. Language: a conventional system of symbols representing concepts and rules of governing the symbols. Communication: the process of exchanging information between organisms: other species communicate! We study the existence of language in nonhuman species: not necessarily a language, though. Gua: raised in a home" setting by the kelloggs, first american family to raise a chimp in their home. No special effort to teach him to speak (like the child). Viki: learned to produce 4 words, viki was another chimp. Raised in family, tried to deliberately teach her to speak over 3 years. Could understand many words, could only produce four. Sometimes her jaw had to be held to even produce those words. Washoe: learned american sign language, since chimps aren"t philologically capable of producing the sounds, taught. Nim chimsky: couldn"t spontaneously produce sentences, nim was raised by a grad student.