Project Nim Reflection

After watching the documentary film, Project Nim, I was not surprised at all to hear that many of the scientists involved in the experiment were not convinced that chimps had the ability to ever learn how to properly sign. Several years ago, I had watched a YouTube video that touched on experiments like this one where it was stated that chimps, much like young human children, do not have the ability to understand that there are multiple points of view for the things that go on around them - otherwise known as Theory of Mind.
To put Theory of Mind briefly, it is when a person (or anything for that matter) has the mental ability to assign different mental states to itself and other being around it. Basically, one has the ability to distinguish between their own thoughts and knowledge and other’s thoughts and knowledge. Chimps and young
While the experiment shown in the film seemed to say that chimps are incapable of language, I am more of the opinion that their research was done properly. As shown by the article by Gordon Gallup, chimps are actually able to learn things that many think of as human traits - such as the ability to see their reflection not “as if the image represented another animal,” but rather as their own reflection. This ability, much like Theory of Mind, is something that human children learn as they grow up. In my opinion, it is not out of the realm of possibility that chimps are capable of learning Theory of Mind much like they learned to see themselves in a mirror without thinking that their reflection is another chimp. However, Nim was not fortunate enough to be taught in a way similar to that of a young child (having been taken from his human “mother” at a critical age - possibly scaring him), so the results of this experiment may not be as accurate as once