![]() Instead, they set up a conversational environment that evoked communication, without the use of rewards for specific actions. In addition, they stopped the tickle rewards during instruction because these generally resulted in laughing breakdowns. They changed their strategy so that food and meal times were never juxtaposed with instruction times. Moreover, the Gardners began to realize that rewarding particular signs with food and tickles was actually interfering with the intended result of conversational sign language. At the time of observation, Washoe showed no signs of having learned the sign, but on a later occasion she reacted to the sight of a toothbrush by spontaneously producing the correct sign, thereby showing that she had in fact previously learned the ASL sign. For example, the scientists signed "toothbrush" to each other while they brushed their teeth near her. Īfter the first couple of years of the language project, the Gardners and Roger Fouts discovered that Washoe could pick up ASL gestures without direct instruction, but instead by observing humans around her who were signing amongst themselves. This technique was said to resemble that used when teaching human children language. While with Washoe, the Gardners and Foutses were careful to communicate only in ASL with Washoe, rather than using vocal communication, on the assumption that this would create a less confusing learning environment for Washoe. Washoe was raised in an environment as close as possible to that of a human child, in an attempt to satisfy her psychological need for companionship. ASL instruction and usage Teaching method When Washoe was five, the Gardners decided to move on to other projects, and she was moved to the University of Oklahoma's Institute of Primate Studies in Norman, Oklahoma, under the care of Roger Fouts and Deborah Fouts. Harvard psychologist Roger Brown said that "was like getting an S.O.S. ![]() Upon seeing a swan, Washoe signed "water" and "bird". Much like a human child, she underwent a regular routine with chores, outdoor play, and rides in the family car. She had access to clothing, combs, toys, books, and a toothbrush. The trailer had a couch, drawers, a refrigerator, and a bed with sheets and blankets. ![]() Washoe had her own 8-foot-by-24-foot trailer complete with living and cooking areas. She frequently wore clothes and sat with them at the dinner table. The Gardners raised Washoe as one would raise a child. Their solution was to utilize the chimpanzee's ability to create diverse body gestures, which is how they communicate in the wild, by starting a language project based on American Sign Language. The Gardners believed that these projects were flawed because chimpanzees are physically unable to produce the voiced sounds required for oral language. At the time, previous attempts to teach chimpanzees to imitate vocal languages (the Gua and Viki projects) had failed. Allen Gardner and Beatrix Gardner established a project to teach Washoe ASL at the University of Nevada, Reno. Washoe was named after Washoe County, Nevada, where she was raised and taught to use ASL. She was captured for use by the US Air Force for research for the US space program. She spent most of her life at Central Washington University. Washoe learned approximately 350 signs of ASL, also teaching her adopted son Loulis some signs. September 1965 – October 30, 2007) was a female common chimpanzee who was the first non-human to learn to communicate using American Sign Language (ASL) as part of an animal research experiment on animal language acquisition.
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