The #1 source for news about monkeys and apes

[Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

The Gazette (Montreal)

February 24, 2001 Saturday FINAL EDITION

SECTION: SCIENCE, Pg. J8

LENGTH: 632 words

HEADLINE: Examples of mental capacities

SOURCE: Knight Ridder Newspapers

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

BODY:
Here are some examples of the surprising mental capacities researchers have
discovered in primates:


PROBLEM SOLVING: Harvard psychologist Marc Hauser tested a monkey's ability
to solve the problem of getting food that was out of reach outside its
cage.

In one experiment, the food was located on a piece of cloth that the monkey
could pull toward itself, while another morsel was placed off the cloth.

In a second test, the monkey had to choose between food placed on a single
cloth or on one of two pieces of cloth separated by a gap.

In both cases, the monkey pulled the right cloth, thereby solving the
problem, usually on the first try, Hauser reported. These experiments show
monkeys can see the connection between an action on one object and its
effect on another.

"This comprehension is at the root of all tool use," Hauser said.


TOOL USE: To crack nuts, chimpanzees put a shell on a flat rock and hammer
it open with a stone. They may store a favourite hammer under a familiar
tree so they can use it over again. In the presence of their infants,
mother chimps wield their hammers slowly to show how the job is done.
Sometimes, mothers correct their pupils' mistakes.


SELF-AWARENESS: Researcher Gordon Gallup, a psychologist at the State
University of New York in Albany, has demonstrated that apes, unlike most
animals, can be trained to recognize themselves in a mirror.

Gallup anesthetized chimpanzees and, while they were unconscious, put dabs
of colour on their face. When the chimps woke up and looked in the mirror,
they spontaneously touched the marks.

Penny Patterson, an animal psychologist at Santa Clara University in Santa
Clara, Calif., has trained Koko, a female gorilla, to use sign language to
express her wishes, feelings and thoughts. When a trainer put a mirror in
front of Koko and asked her what she saw, the 300-pound gorilla made the
signs for "Me, Koko."


COMMUNICATION: When a vervet monkey, an African species, emits the call for
eagle, his fellow monkeys look up to the sky. When the call is for leopard,
they climb a tree. When it's for a snake, they stand up and look around for
the danger.


LANGUAGE: In her Atlanta Language Research Centre, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh has
taught Kanzi, her famous chimpanzee, to communicate with humans by pointing
to printed symbols on a keyboard. In return, Kanzi understands scores of
spoken English words and sentences.

The chimp demonstrates "the rudimentary language skills of 2 1/2-year-old
children," Savage-Rumbaugh said. For example, if Kanzi is told to "pour the
milk in the juice," he responds properly and does not pour the juice in the
milk.