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Apes May Be Closer to Speaking Than Many Scientists Think

posted by CoolHand on Sunday August 16 2015, @01:58AM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-talk-to-us-you-d@mn-dirty-ape dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Koko the gorilla is best known for a lifelong study to teach her a silent form of communication, American Sign Language. But some of the simple sounds she has learned may change the perception that humans are the only primates with the capacity for speech.

In 2010, Marcus Perlman started research work at The Gorilla Foundation, where Koko has spent more than 40 years living immersed with humans -- interacting for many hours each day with psychologist Penny Patterson and biologist Ron Cohn.

"I went there with the idea of studying Koko's gestures, but as I got into watching videos of her, I saw her performing all these amazing vocal behaviors," says Perlman, now a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of University of Wisconsin-Madison psychology Professor Gary Lupyan.

The vocal and breathing behaviors Koko had developed were not necessarily supposed to be possible.

The role of language in intelligence and the evolution of consciousness is fascinating. It's profound that apes can begin to learn it within the right social context. Still, humans do it quite innately.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Geotti on Sunday August 16 2015, @02:27AM

    by Geotti (1146) on Sunday August 16 2015, @02:27AM (#223430) Journal

    So, a few hundred thousand years ago, some creatures came to earth and genetically altered a genus of primates and here we are... Yay! (That, or Darwin was right.)

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16 2015, @04:45AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16 2015, @04:45AM (#223450)

    Not saying it was aliens... but it was aliens.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16 2015, @10:17AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16 2015, @10:17AM (#223486)

    Intelligent design is real and god is dead!

    • (Score: 2) by Geotti on Sunday August 16 2015, @10:52AM

      by Geotti (1146) on Sunday August 16 2015, @10:52AM (#223500) Journal

      So I take it you're arguing that the aforementioned event happened ~4000 years ago?

  • (Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Sunday August 16 2015, @03:13PM

    by opinionated_science (4031) on Sunday August 16 2015, @03:13PM (#223535)

    The last common ancestor of Homo Sapiens Sapiens with Gorilla Gorilla is about 10 million years...

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 17 2015, @02:29AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 17 2015, @02:29AM (#223728)

      The last common ancestor of Homo Sapiens Sapiens with Gorilla Gorilla is about 10 million years...

      I don't know, did you see the last Tea Party convention?

    • (Score: 2) by Geotti on Monday August 17 2015, @02:32AM

      by Geotti (1146) on Monday August 17 2015, @02:32AM (#223730) Journal

      But it might be unnecessary to go all the way back. We could have just gotten a nudge on the last evolutionary step.