Herbert S. Terrace's Attempt To Teach American Sign Language

In order to investigate the possibility of thought without language, Project Nim saw Herbert S. Terrace attempting to teach American Sign Language to a young chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky. The goal was to ascertain whether a chimpanzee could combine the signs it was taught to produce different meanings, inspired by a previous project that had claimed their ability to do so. The project’s results were disappointing, indicating that the chimpanzees were unable to use the signs to form meaningful sentences, and so Terrace moved on to monkeys, consequently proving through several complex and challenging experiments that monkeys can learn and recall sequences of randomly selected images. Terrace concluded that though animals cannot use language, they are still capable of thought.

Commentary

Comprehension precedes production: a well known fact in developmental psychology, and one that I believe supports Terrace’s views on language without thought. Descartes claimed that the inability of animals to use
language renders them incapable of thought. Anybody with a pet, anybody who has ever spent time around animals can dispute this statement. Language aside, animals display near-constant evidence of thought the same way humans do: the calculated leap of a cat from countertop to table, a dog’s excitement at its owner’s arrival and disappointment at their departure. A stunning study by Karen McComb and colleagues found that elephants presented with the skulls of an elephant, a rhinoceros and a buffalo displayed significant interest in the elephant skull above all others (McComb et al., 2006) — they were able to recognize the bones of their own species. If comprehension precedes production, who is to say that an animal’s ability to communicate with any human-re cognized language defines their ability to think?
The argument can be made that it is impossible for us as humans to discern exactly what thoughts are going through the heads of animals. Certainly, their true thoughts may be radically different from what we interpret, and different species of animals undoubtably have levels of comprehension and communication that vary drastically. However, just like young babies show distinct signs of comprehension before they are able to speak in a recognizable language, animals show signs of thought, however abstract that thought may be. It would be impossible for animals to even begin to interact with us the way that they do if they were incapable of even the most basic thought. Consider a dog barking at the sight of a stranger — it is thinking “danger”. Consider a chimpanzee, putting symbols in order for a researcher because it knows it will be rewarded. Every interaction we have with animals is proof that they are creatures who are able
t o think despite their inability to learn any human form of language, just as Terrace concluded.