Marduk

" Iwouldn't say I know either, but I think it is more than simple stimulus-response set. Dogs appear to be
actively looking for the relevant precursors to those stimuli that are important to them,"
This is true enough, on Sat. nights I'm up later than usual, around 1 am. The dog won't go to bed without me but I know he's tired and wants to, he eyeballs my every movement looking for a 'bedtime queue' when I empty my glass and set it down or put out a cigarette, he springs up and heads upstairs "finally we're going to sleep"
It takes dogs quite a bit to adopt to human life, they must learn to control a lot of natural instincts. My dog has the run of the house when I'm at work, he could find plenty of rooms away from his sleeping area to excrete, but he waits till I come home and let him out, he knows the other animals in the house are 'family' and not prey etc. A human child raised by wolves would have a hard time learning wolf life, find food with it's nose, kill with it's mouth and so on. In fact there have been some cases of feral children raised by animals, how far on the scale do they get? What about their thinking process?
Sometimes it seems to me some humans (an animal species as well) try to pretend other animals have no brains so the can justify killing, eating, abusing, and exploiting the critters with a clean conscience. Just the rationalization I'll bet those alien guys use to 'probe' and experiment on hillbillies.

ohwilleke

One way to approach the problem more seriously would be to look at brain structure. Neuroscientists think of the human brain as having several evolutionary layers. The inner most "reptilian brain" handles simple base instinct" The next layer, sometimes called the mammalian brain, includes brain parts like the Amagalya (sp?) that handle primal emotions. The exterior part of the brain is associated with "higher thought" and the frontal cortex in particular is associated with an awareness that one exists, a self-consciousness. If dogs have this structure in their own brains, it is fair to guess that they have self-consciousness. If not, it is fair to assume that they don't. It has been so long since I did an animal dissection, that I don't recall whether they do or they don't.

Corey Hammer

But the point is that sensorimotor is the primary mode of interacting with the world at that stage, hence its name. One language is acquired, sensorimotor interactions are no longer primary. The original quote was:

Such a functional diability is extremely rare. Nearly everyone reaches pre-operational stage.

So do apes, but there is no evidence that they do not really understand what words are. During an internet chat with one of those apes, when asked a question, the ape would most often reply with nonsense responses (e.g., if asked what their favorite food was, the response may have been "red"). However, they definitely do not understand syntax and are not capable of constructing novel statements beyond one word.

Now this one is interesting. I haven't read anything beyond the Scientific American article, but from what they published it looks like that species may be able to learn to process symbols and learn syntax.

Context is an important part of language. It's one of the problems with voice recognition systems in computers. Complete understanding of language requires an understanding of context. Your anecdote indicates only intsrumental conditioning.

There is such a thing as one-trial learning, the Garcia Effect is a prime example (i.e., getting sick after having eaten some food and then gaining a revulsion for it afterwards).

Communication need not be linguistic. Even humans communicate non-verbally a great deal (see work by Bella DePaulo).

ksagnostic

Uh, Corey. I am talking about people who fail to acquire, or functionally lack, "language", and who are often described as "functioning" at a "9-month old level" (not that all, or even most, people who fail to acquire "language" remain "stuck" at the sensorimotor stage). Communication training with people in this population is my professional specialty. I know the difference. I was discussing the varied reasons why some people with profound developmental/communication disabilites may remain stuck at the sensorimotor stage. Unfortunately, my contention was that there are more people stuck at this level than there should be, because early intervention was either lacking, or not done properly. I tend to get folks later in life, when remediation gives way to compensation. My comments in this area were, I admit, a little off topic. But I sure stand by them.

Extremely rare? Depends on your perspective, I guess. I'm keeping quite busy.

Your first sentence does not go with the rest of you paragraph. I am guessing you either meant to say 1) "but there is evidence that they do not understand what words are" or 2) "but there is no evidence that they understand what words are". If you meant to say 1), then I would say that I consider the evidence that language trained apes (as a group) do not understand what words are to be weak, if you meant 2), you're just plain wrong.

Point of clarification regarding my references to Herman's dolphins and Schusterman's sea lions, the work done with these animals was in the area of receptive, not expressive, communication. Both the dolphins and the sea lions were able to accurately follow instructions encoded in gestural symbols, and differentially able to follow gesturally encoded instructions based on syntactic rather than semantic differences. As for apes, the bonobo Kanzi has done much more than that, following a variety of one part and even two part directions in English. Kanzi's receptive language accomplishments have been amply documented on videotape. However, since great apes have both a Wernicke's area and a Broca's area, I didn't mention them, since I was questioning your assumption that such areas were necessary for "linguistic processing" by non-human animals. In fact, humans whose left hemispheres were removed early (and even later) in childhood are still able engage in liguistic processing without their Wernicke's or Broca's areas, even though they typically have some difficulties.

One last comment about the particular ape who participated in an internet chat. You are referring to Koko the gorilla. The problem with Koko is that her trainer/companion "Penny" Patterson is always with her, and is always interpreting for her. More ever, her interpretations of Koko's signs seem to be invariably generous, and she always has a quick explanation for Koko's off topic or just plain odd responses. Patterson long ago gave up any attempt to convince a skeptical scientific community of her interpretations of Koko's abilities. As a result, her credibility is pretty much shot. Don't make the mistake of lumping the other ape language researchers with Penny Patterson, however.

Irene Pepperberg is brilliant. Her research was carefully done, and meticulously documented every step of the way. And, she is VERY cautious in her interpretation. When I see Alex on videotape, I am blown away not only by what he does, but HOW he does it. If you are interested, I strongly suggest this book...

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674008065/qid=1016169931/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_3_1/102-5259253-4920102" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674008065/qid=1016169931/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_3_1/102-5 259253-4920102</a>


No, my anecdote does not indicate only instrumental conditioning. It may indicate that she recognized "walk" out of a stream of sounds produced by a human vocal tract, in spite of the fact that the intonation, and even the actual acoustical qualities, were different than when "walk" was announced to her. Heck, I may have been mistaken entirely, and she may have been responding to the time of day, or some other unintentional behavior my wife or I were doing that she associated with going outside. Or, she may have seen or heard something outside that was so interesting that she wanted to be let out the front door. In other words, I can't, and don't, claim that my anecdote positively "indicates" anything. Assuming, however, my interpretation that she matched the word "walk" out of a conversation to "walk" in the utterance "Do you want to go for a WALK?", I find it to be an impressive accomplishment. Why? Because historically ANOTHER problem with speech recognition computer programs is that they have to "recognize" words even though there are acoustical and phonological differences in how the same person says the same word, depending on the person's emotional state and communicative intent (which would effect prosodic features), and the other words that are said in in the utterance (which would effect the phonological environment and therefore co-articulation). I think that this problem has been largely overcome, but my understanding is that it wasn't easy (I have followed this a little because speech recognition technology has some very interesting possible applications to people who have severe articulation disorders due to consistent phonological process errors). At any rate, IF my rank speculation is correct, the dog recognized the phonetic construct of "walk" during a conversation with my wife about a walk I took as a stimulus relating to being taken outside on a leash, even though it would have sounded different from the phrase "Do you want to go for a WALK?". Even if it was instrumental conditioning, it was still a discrimination, conscious or not, of a PHONEMIC set, which involves separating acoustically different versions of "walk" from the rest of the sound stream. Again, however, this is anecdotal information based on seventeen year old memories (for this particular dog). Also keep in mind that I indicated that I have NOT seen any indication of this kind of rapid learning of "words" or "phrases" in our other two dogs.

I am aware of that.

And in fact, I was not referring to lingusitic communication at all, I was referring to intentional communication, ala' Elizabeth Bates (probably my favorite developmental pscholinguistic theorist). The fact that dogs in their interactions with humans engage in behavior that is consistent with intentional communicative behavior as defined by people like Bates (for example, dual focusing behavior in the execution of apparent proto-imperatives), is I think a really neglected issue in cognitive ethology and comparative psychology.

I am not familiar with Bella DePaulo. But I'll look (her?) up.

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Corey Hammer

I concede the point.

I'm talking about base rate, not actual numbers. Out of 280 million in the U.S. alone, I can imagine that it's a least a hundred thousand or so who have this disability.

Oops. I meant to say either "There is evidence that..." or There is no evidence that really understand what the words mean." It's not that they do not understand what words are; it's the specific words they have trouble with using.

Do you have some citations for this? When I get some time, I think I might look these up because, to me and based only on your quick summary, I see no difference between understanding of the gestural symbols and instrumental conditioning.

Only full (non-instrumental) linguistic processing. That includes both understanding linguistic communication directed at you and the construction of novel statements with grammar and syntax. The parrot, Alex, is a definite exception.

Wernicke's and Broca's usually reform on the right hemisphere if trauma occurs early and even to a lesser degree in adults. In fact, lefties have a higher rate of those areas forming naturally on the right hemisphere than righties.

Yup. That's who it was. I don't lump together all researchers in the field, but I have to admit that Koko's responses indicate possible problems with the species's understanding of grammar.\

Yes, it does. You said she recognized the word "walk" regardless of context. If she only responded if referring to her going outside, then it would be one thing. But, you said that she gets excited regardless of the context in which the word is used.

That is interesting. It's most likely stimulus generalization, but the fact she was able to connect several different intonations is very interesting.

That's possible too. Have you ever heard of Clever Hans?

Yup. It's the nearly the same problem that optical character recognition also has (e.g., "a" vs. "A").

Not really my field, but do you have any good review articles I could take a look at?

I think Bella is a she; I think. She's done work on non-verbal self-presentation in humans. There's a review article of that title in Psychological Review, but I can't remember that year at the moment and it's disappeared out of my files.

three4jump

Here's another story (I realize that anecdotal evidence is not proof of anything). My mom's cat would find a twig to play with, take it in the house, set it behind something like a chair leg, walk away and pretend to ignore it for a bit, and then sneak up and pounce on it. Possible explanations for this behaviour:

A. It's not evidence of planning or creativity. The cat actually forgot he set the stick there, and upon noticing it again, it triggered the hunting instincts in his little brain and he pounced on it thinking it was a snake. That we would think the cat creative and imaginative is just our projection of human attributes onto an animal.

B. The cat does have an active imagination. He sees himself in the future, imagines various options for what he might do, and chooses a recreation for himself to pass the time in a pleasant way and practice his hunting skills. He knows the twig is not a snake or a worm or any type of prey. It is a symbol to him, and he is using it as a tool to recreate a hunting experience. He pretends that he didn't set the twig down and that he is discovering it for the first time, knowing all the time that he did put it there and this is an artifice. If he is thinking along these lines, I would say his thinking resembles what I think of as consciousness, although to a lesser degree.

Any thoughts on which scenario is more likely?

sullster

I am vastly enjoying all the discussions. Even those I don't understand. What an opportunity to be exposed to knowledge without the cost.

I recalled my Descartes today. I know that science has been moving away from his dualities.

Descartes would say that my dog is a non-conscious automaton. He is not like a machine, but is a machine, and a clever one at that. Us humans of course, are calculating thinking beings according to Descartes.

My further query to you ,who know about these things, is Descartes' view of animal minds still around at all? If it has been overturned, then what does that do to human consciousness? Are the animals now somewhat conscious and we, somewhat automaton? Is Descartes off the table?

Dr Rick

"Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in."

Mark Twain, 1912

MJones

Caninality.

Sorry if someone else pointed this out already; I'm just now reading this thread....

Dirty Dog

Ape

I would say that some fundamentalist christians believe that:

a.) Animals have no souls

therefore:

b.) Animals are not conscious

This would lead them to argue that since they are not conscious then animals are merely machines made by god. (for our exploitation of course!)


Side note: Kanzi is remarkable... even capable of limited stone tool manufacturing.

As for conscious animals... I have read some researcher's papers that place Bonobos and Chimps at the human 2 1/2 - 3 year old level of awareness and intelligence.