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
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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
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Seeing or Sight
Involves Gestures
Body Posture
Facial Expression
Facial Gestures
AUDITORY
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Hearing
Perceptive sounds by
detecting it though the
ears
Common Forms of Animal Communication
Pheromones
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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
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the communication based on sound and is widely used in the animal kingdom –
Visual Signals
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involves signals that can be seen (gestures, facial expressions, body postures,
and coloration).
Tactile signals
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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
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Obtaining mates
Establishing dominance or depending territory
Coordinating group behaviors
Caring for young
Human- Animal Communication
How human communicate with animals?
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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:
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Auditory- communication by an animal through sound
Tactile- Communication that involves touching
Visual- It is based on visible signals
PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUNDS
Rene Descartes
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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
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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
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2. Kanzi
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3. Gua
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4. Koko
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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