Lessons for Lana

According to an old saw, if a chimpanzee is allowed to punch the keys of a typewriter at random for a long enough time, it will eventually peck out Hamlet. Lana, a playful three-year-old female chimpanzee at Emory University's Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center, will never accomplish that feat, but she is already one up on the hypothetical chimp. Under the tutelage of the center's scientists, Lana is rapidly learning how to read and write in a brand-new language called Yerkish.

Chimps are perhaps the most intelligent of all apes, and others before Lana have acquired sign-language vocabularies of more than 100 words. But Lana's teaching system is based on a computer, which she can operate at will by pressing large keys on a console. On each of the variously colored keys is a different geometric form; the forms are the words--or "lexigrams," as the scientists call them--of Yerkish. When Lana presses a key, the symbol flashes overhead on a screen and its English equivalent is reproduced on a teleprinter in a nearby control room.

Lana's instruction began with a simple search-and-reward system. If she happened to press the symbol for M & M chocolates, for example, the computer would promptly drop a piece of the candy from a vending device. As soon as Lana began associating symbol and reward, the scientists required her to touch a new symbol for "please" before she pressed the M & M key, and then to hit another key for "period." If Lana failed to hit all three of the symbols in the proper sequence, the candy would not appear. Next she had to add verbs like "give" and "make" before she got her reward. Finally, she had to form whole sentences.

An apt pupil, Lana quickly learned how to get her fill of her favorite grape juice ("Please machine give juice period") or pieces of banana. But could she also learn to pay heed to the symbols displayed on the screen--in effect, to read?

Lana's tutors flashed parts of sentences on the screen: "Please machine give ..." Almost always, Lana punched out the correct completion. When the researchers tried to trick her with jumbled syntax--like "Please make machine ..."--Lana usually wiped out the sentence by indignantly punching the period key, which cleared the computer and the screen.

So far Lana has learned about 75 words--which her trainers regard as only a start. As they teach Lana more words they hope to increase their understanding of how chimps actually learn a language, and to gain new insights into how those skills are acquired by humans. What they learn could eventually be useful in teaching youngsters with language difficulties. It could also open a new channel of communication between man and animal. "Wouldn't you like to know what a chimp thinks about?" says Georgia State University Psychologist Duane M. Rumbaugh.

"Perhaps one day Lana or another chimp can act as an interpreter between their world and ours."

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