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| News/Research:
:Mar. 19, 2008
Sharing Data at the 2008 Gorilla Workshop |
The international Gorilla Workshop is unique among conferences: the only conference focused exclusively on gorillas, its presenters address aspects of health and welfare and behavior, captive and field research, and this year, a special focus on conservation. Participants from zoos and conservation organizations joined field researchers and veterinarians in exchanging knowledge and ideas on how best to care for and protect this magnificent species. Attendees from North and South America, Africa, Australia, Europe and Asia, from formal organizations to interested individuals, came together to present their perspectives and learn from those of others.
The Gorilla Foundation's presentation at the 2008 Gorilla Workshop in Kissimmee, Florida (hosted by Disney's Animal Kingdom and Brevard Zoo) focused on both the techniques and benefits of teaching human sign language to captive gorillas — for research, care and conservation purposes.
The presentation, by Susan Lutter, featured the new ZEST (Zoo Enrichment Signing Tutorial) being developed by the Gorilla Foundation as a way of sharing our three decades of interspecies communication experience with other great ape facilities, so that other great apes can benefit from two-way communication. For an introduction to ZEST, which was presented at the Gorilla Workshop, click here.
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Figure 1: ZEST (Zoo Enrichment Signing Tutorial) Screen Shots
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Gorillas naturally utilize a number of vocalizations and gestures to communicate with each other. ZEST builds on this innate ability, and our 35 years of experience in teaching American Sign Language to two lowland gorillas (Koko and MIchael), to facilitate the introduction of improved two-way communication between gorillas and their caregivers — and potentially with visitors, in zoo settings. Beyond care, the enrichment benefits of two-way communication are obvious, and complement the new ideas for environmental enrichment currently being implemented in captive settings. Finally, ZEST may help us realize some of the benefits of two-way (interspecies) communication for the conservation of this "critically" endangered species — by fostering human empathy for their fellow great apes.
The following is some background on the rationale and development of ZEST that was not presented at the conference.
The process of introducing American Sign Language (ASL) to young gorillas Koko and MIchael turned out to resemble sign language acquisition by human children.
As in Figure 2 at right, Koko learned an increasing number of new words (signs) each year, with a rapid spurt in the first few years, peaking at 200 new signs learned in the 3rd year. Human children also show a learning spike like this. Figure 3 at right shows that the cumulative effect for Koko was a vocabulary of over 800 signs at the end of 10 years — and well over 1000 signs today.
Note that in our research study ("Project Koko") Dr. Penny Patterson used a very strict criterion (the "P" criterion, shown in blue) to establish Koko's intelligent use of a sign: independent observation by 2 researchers of spontaneous, appropriate use of a sign on at least 15 days of the month.
Alternatively, the "E" criterion (yellow) required only 2 independent observations on 1 day of the month.
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Figure 2: Koko's First 10 Years of Sign Language Acquisition
Figure 3: Koko's First 10 Years of Sign Language Acquisition
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While we have continued to record detailed gorilla sign frequency, contextual and grammatical data for over 35 years its utility is primarily for linguistic research purposes, such data is not required for improving human-gorilla interaction (i.e., care) or to expedite conservation action through empathy.Which brings us to the focus of our Gorilla Workshop presentation: ZEST ((Zoo Enrichment Signing Technology). We developed ZEST to facilitate the teaching of ape sign language wherever caregivers and great apes would stand to benefit from improved "two-way communication." ZEST is a multimedia database that encapsulates Koko's ASL vocabulary in photos, videos, text descriptions and examples to motivate, explain, demonstrate and track the learning of the most practically useful sign language words and phrases. It allows multiple groups of great apes and caregivers to simultaneously teach and track their progress in acquiring minimal ASL as a second language, while also evaluating the benefits and costs (and thus the cost-effectiveness) of basic sign language communication with captive great apes.
At the Gorilla Workshop, we invited zoos and sanctuaries interested in developing closer communication with their great ape residents to collaborate with us through ZEST — for improved care, enrichment, relationship-building and conservation. While ZEST can also be used to further ape linguistic research — as well as to study ape natural language (they appear to have developed gestural languages of their own*) — such applications are not a pre-requisite for collaboration; basic care and conservation are currently a more urgent priority for the great apes themselves.
Contact Us:
— Interested great ape caregivers and managers can contact us to discuss ZEST by emailing zest@koko.org .
— For more general questions regarding the Gorilla Foundation's research, email research_feedback@koko.org
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• We use the term "second language" here to acknowledge that gorillas and other great apes appear to have rich gestural languages of their own (see for example Tanner, Patterson and Byrne, 2006). ZEST is being equipped to study and record these "natural ape languages" as well as to teach and track standard American Sign Language . |
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Copyright 2008 The Gorilla Foundation/Koko.org.
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