Animal Consciousness and Experiments on Languages and Animals Objectives At the end of these weeks, the pre-teachers (PST) should be able a. trace the possibility of language origin in cultural (anthropological) perspective; b. recognize sign language as a language of cultural significance ro people with special needs; c. and identify the different theories of anthropological linguistics and relate them to society and language learning through a case presentation. Objectives a. Discuss other forms of communication humans use besides language; b. Compare and contrast the laboratory studies of non-human animal communication with studies of non-human animals; c. Learned the difference experiments on language and animals What is Consciousness? -a state of being aware especially of something within oneself. -individual awareness of one’s unique thoughts memories, feelings, sensation and environment. Animal Consciousness -Is the quality or state of self-awareness within a non-human animal Self-awareness -To be conscious means to be awake and receptive to stimulus received from the surrounding environment. Mirror Test - a popular test for consciousness - only few animals past this test most of them are apes. Critical Thinking -Capacity to reason, think, analyze, and make logical decision. Instinctual behavior could not define consciousness, because it is said that Instinctual behavior in animals are not sufficient characteristics for having self-consciousness, although it involves mental presence still you can say that is conscious when that living thing is able to think critically and make decisions out of it. Ex. A Crab – when a crab is placed in a tank and you put light on it. It will search for a place where it can hide itself. That involves the instinctual behavior of the crab. They can always use their instinct, but they can’t tell what is there feeling. Language Capacity -Animals can communicate with each other but they are not considered to have a language. ANIMAL LANGUAGE Animals don’t have the ability to put words together to form sentences. ANIMAL COMMUNICATION Vocalization Non-vocal Noises Smell Color Visual Displays How do animals Communicate? · An animal can transmit information to another animal causing some kind of change in the animal that gets the information. · Communication may happen between animals of the same species or animals of different species. Two modes of Animal Communication VISUAL Seeing or Sight Involves Gestures Body Posture Facial Expression Facial Gestures AUDITORY Hearing Perceptive sounds by detecting it though the ears Common Forms of Animal Communication Pheromones chemical signal used to trigger a response in another individual of the same species common among social insects, such as ants and bees Auditory Signals the communication based on sound and is widely used in the animal kingdom – Visual Signals involves signals that can be seen (gestures, facial expressions, body postures, and coloration). Tactile signals limited in range than the other types of signals, as two organisms must be right next to each other in order to touch. Purpose of Communication Obtaining mates Establishing dominance or depending territory Coordinating group behaviors Caring for young Human- Animal Communication How human communicate with animals? Human can teach animals on a specific sponsor for a specific condition. Human can communicate to animals through positive or negative reinforcement. Human communicate to animals by giving signals with words, gestures and body language. Training animals may be for purposes such as: -companionship -protection research & -entertainment. How animals communicate with Human? Animals communicate with Human using the most common forms of communication such as: Auditory- communication by an animal through sound Tactile- Communication that involves touching Visual- It is based on visible signals PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUNDS Rene Descartes Mind and body problem. Philosophy examines the relationship between consciousness and the brain. He proposed Cartesian Dualism because he believe that humans have a physical mind and other animal has non-physical mind. B.F Skinner That directly influences the activity of living organism or one of its parts. Stimulus, Response and Reinforcement Types of Reinforcement: Positive Reinforcement and Negative Reinforcement Skinner Box is one of his inventions Cumulative Recorder He found out that behavior did not depend on the preceding stimulus. EXPERIMENTS ON LANGUAGE AND ANIMALS 1. VIKI 2. Kanzi 3. Gua 4. Koko One of the 1st experiments in ape language. Viki was raised by Keith and Catherine Hayes in the same manner as a human infant, to see if she could learn human words. Viki is a Chimpanzee Viki only learned 4 words “mama”, “papa”, “up”, “cup” Kanzi is a Chimpanzee and male bonobo learned to communicate using a keyboard with lexigrams He is intelligent in lexigram He learned hundreds of arbitrary symbols represents words, object, and familiar people. Gua is a chimpanzee, that experimented like an infant. Experiment by the scientist named Luella and Winthrop Kellog, alongside their infant son Donald. Gua tested ahead of Donald in such task as responding to simple command or using spoon or cup. She is Gorilla She learned American Sign Language over 3000 sign language Experiment by Francine Patterson She has a cat named All Ball 5. Michael The first male “talking” gorilla He learned 5000 sign language Michael was an extraordinary gorilla — an artist, music lover, articulate storyteller, and Koko’s best friend. When asked what he remembered about his mother, Michael told and repeated a very disturbing story in sign language References https://www.koko.org/conservation/michaels-story/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_QRkgrDdKI&t=91s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koko_%28gorilla%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gua_(chimpanzee) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVwGG0A5d5w&t=239s Group 1 FAELNAR, CRYSTALE KAYE D. GUMBAN, DYLMA ARCENIO, MELANIE ALMAZAN, CIELO
