What concepts do chimpanzees understand?

I want to warn you that it is impossible to identify what other species actually “know”. All we can do is infer what they know based on observations.

I shall show you a relevent video which we were shown in a lecture about animal intelligence. You can make what you want of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSoqfb56tpQ

What I make from it: chimpanzees can use computers and can also select abstract shapes in a certain order regardless of position on a display with the correct training.

Even my dog understands good butt (sit), wait, die (lie down), gimme’ kiss, do pot, off the couch, and load up.

I would suppose there are more, like good boy. He understands these phrases as commands, but I do not suppose that he is capable of understanding the concept of “sit” to the same degree that a human does.

He also has different barks that are engaged for different situations. For instance, he would never bark at me like he does at the mail man. Dogs have a limited degree of communication skills, but there is no possibility they could share conceptual frameworks with humans.

I suppose primates are much the same from the limited knowledge I have of them. Perhaps I’m mistaken.

I find it interesting that chimps are one of the few animals (other primates, dolphins, etc) that are able to pass a simple test of “self awareness” (though I question whether that’s really what it actually tests). If you put a mark, say a line of facepaint on a chimp’s forehead and then show it a mirror, it will immediately put it’s hand up and start to wipe off the mark. If you did the same to, say, a dog, it could look at it forever, perhaps thinking “that dog there has something on its forehead.” It doesn’t recognize that face as its own. There’s some sort of line of awareness and cognition there…

The thing about chimps and a few other species is that they can be taught language. This provides a mechanism for testing their understanding. Could I, for example, get different responses from a chimp if I asked it for a few grapes as opposed to asking it for a lot of grapes? Could I get a chimp to show me who was the mother of another chimp? My suspicion is that the ability to handle such abstract concepts is very limited.

It’s my understanding that chimpanzees understand the concept of “chew off my owner’s friend’s face”.

once again @MeinKampf has demonstrated the concept of the media sponge, soaks it all up and squeezes out his fear and poison at any random opportunity.

@LostInParadise Research into teaching primate species language is very limited. For example they have little to no knowledge of the use of grammar From what I gather it appears nothing different to normal conditioning experiments.

I wish I could provide evidence, but all my university stuff is at.. university. lol. And I cannot get them until over a months time when I go back.

You’ve asked a really complex question on which researchers are still divided. There’s far too much info to be able to sum up easily.

I’ve been fascinated by this whole subject of animal comminication for a long time. There are several animals who have been taught “language” to one degree or another. Several primates as well as a thirty year study with an African Grey parrot.

Many of the people working with these animals have indeed estimated their understanding level as equivalent to human toddlers 2½ to 3 yrs old.

But others feel that they are reading too much into the communication efforts and are biased since they are the ones working with these animals and want to validate their work.

You can judge for yourself. I’m going to include websites for both Koko and Alex. You can also do an info search on Kanzi, a Bonobo who communicates slightly differently.

There are numerous articles on all of these animals with varying viewpoints on how much they can understand and communicate to us. There are also numerous short video clips of each of these animals so everyone can see for themselves.

Years ago there was a documentary about Koko which aired on PBS but I can’t remember the name of it. I found it really fascinating, especially the part when he ended up with a little kitten for his pet. Imagine that !

This Q definitely has few pat, one- size- fits- all answers.
The one thing for certain is that what these animals know is a whole lot more than what was ever considered possible in the past.

www.koko.org

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www.alexfoundation.org

What research I have seen on the subject certainly suggests that a number of animals are capable of comprehending abstract principles. Chimpanzees, for instance, seem to be one of the few animals aside from humans that understand the concept of doing favors for others and have an expectation of a “fair” return, which implies understanding abstract concepts, having long term memory, and having some fundamental grasp of a counting system.

@RealEyes

I’m going to assume that “do pot” is a shortened version of a bathrooming type of a command :)

When I first saw it, I was wondering what type of pet parent you were ;)

But I’m curious about the significance of “load up”. I’m sure it means something to your dog. I just wonder what that would be ?

We know that animals can’t be taught to understand human language, however, a chimpanzee called washoe was the first animal that could understand some human sign language, she also successfully taught her adopted son Loulis some sign language of her knowledge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washoe_(chimpanzee)

There was an interesting experiment involving capuchin monkeys. Basically the experiment involved giving unequal rewards to the monkeys for equal work. What I found extraordinary is that the monkeys that received the lesser reward were aware of what was going on and expressed resentment, in some cases refusing their reward. Just think of the cognition required for the monkey behavior. I wonder what would happen if a similar experiment were done with chimpanzees that had been taught to communicate. Would they behave the same way. How much of what they feel would they be able to communicate? Would they be able to say, “I want that,” pointing to what another chimp received? I suppose it would be too much to expect them to be able to verbalize the idea of fairness.