Monkey Hear, But Monkey Not Comprehend
Thu Jan 15, 5:08 PM ET  Add Health - HealthDay to My Yahoo!

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Jan. 15 (HealthDayNews) -- Researchers say they've come closer
than ever to figuring out why humans can string sentences together and our
hairy cousins can't.

One of the major barriers to a simian Shakespeare appears to be the
inability of primates to comprehend anything other than the simplest rules
of grammar, according to a new study.

Monkeys who listened to alternating male and female voices couldn't pick up
on complex patterns designed to mimic those of human speech, researchers
found. This lack of understanding could be a "fundamental bottleneck on
animal thought," says study co-author Marc D. Hauser, a professor of
psychology at Harvard University.

While monkey grammar skills may seem like a pretty arcane topic harkening
back to diagrammed sentences on chalkboards, it's actually at the center of
a major mystery: How did human speech evolve? How does the way humans talk
to each other differ from the way animals communicate?

"Grammar may be the defining feature of human language, what makes our
language different from other forms of animal communication," says Keith R.
Kluender, a professor of psychology who studies speech perception at the
University of Wisconsin. "It's a pretty big deal."

It's no secret that animals can communicate with each other in simple
ways -- think of those midnight neighborhood symphonies of howling dogs or
cats in heat. And humans have managed to teach sign language to apes and
dolphins.

But Hauser says the top number of words they have learned is in the
300-to-400 range, which doesn't even compare to the 60,000-word vocabulary
of a typical high school graduate.

Apes "have learned signs that refer to things in their world, like food and
actions," Hauser says. "They could label things and could sign 'apple' or
'pond.' But what they couldn't say is, 'My apple is in the pond' or 'on the
chair.' "

>From  Science via Yahoo News
http://tinyurl.com/3eewp

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