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ALMOST HUMAN

EXPERIMENTS WITH CHIMPANZEES [By J. M. Btrr/rocrr, in the ' Sunday Chronicle.’] When thousands of his fellow-country-men were displaying all _ the ferocious cruelty of orang-outangs in tlio Great War, Wolfgang Kohler, tho professor of philosophy in the University of Berlin, was studying tho intelligence of apes at the anthropoid station in Teneriffe during tho vears 1913-17. Even while the gnus still,"roared he published his remarkable observations in a bonk so interesting that it lias run into a second edition, and now appears in English. His general conclusion is that

the chimnanzccs manifest intelligent behaviour of the general kind familiar in human- beings. Not all their intelligent acts are externally similar to human acts, but under well-chosen- experimental conditions tho typo of intelligent conduct can always bo traced. The professor made Ids observations on nine chimpanzees, all of them as different in temperament as children. Ho describes them all in turn with the most loving care. Tho ugliest and most amiable was Nueva, who would pla-y for hours quite contentedly with tho simplest toys. Koko had a “ pretty face with a tidy parting, a pointed chin, and prominent eyes, which seemed always discontentedly asking for something, giving tho little fellow a naive expression of sauciness.” Sultan was “an egoist par excellence.” An extremely interesting experiment was made to test the apes’ power to think out a problem. On tho ceiling of thoir hohse a banana—you can always appeal to them through the stomach —was placed out of their reach. Six of the apes vainly tried to get it by leaping from the ground, but a clevei* fellow called Sultan soon relinquished this attempt. Ho passed restlessly up and down tho room; then all of a sudden ho stopped in front of a box winch had been placed there to teat himHe seized it, tipped it partly straight towards the objective, but began to climb upon it at a (horizontal) distance of half a metre, and, springing upwards with all his force, tore down the banana.

Some daws later the banana was placed higher, and two boxes were placed in the room. After a great deal of bewilderment Sultan placed one box on another, and as that did not do the trick ho got a ladder. The other apes soon learned from Sultan how to get at the banana. By far tho cleverest was Grande, who displayed great patience in solving the problem.

She would not allow herself to he diverted by any number of mishaps, the collapse of the erection or any other difficulties (partly created involuntarily by herself), and soon was able to put three boxes on top of each other. She even managed' once a beautiful construc-

tion of four boxes. Chimpanzees have sympathetic hearts for what they see, but they have no power of imagining when the object is removed. This was proved by their attitude to their treatment of a sick companion and their complete indifference after tho invalid was removed from their sight. Ono chimpanzee called Konsul grew ill, and another, called Tercera, on seeing him fall to tho ground, sprang up in great solicitude.

She reached him in a few strides on two legs, her face filled with tho utmost concern, her lips protruding with sorrow and uttering cries of distress. She caught hold of him under the arms and did her best to raise him- One could not imagine anything more maternal than this female chimpanzee’s behaviour. But the fact that Konsul, after being taken back to his room, never came out again evoked little sign of grief from Tercera. Mutual hand clasping is not used as a form of greeting, but appears sometimes as a spontaneous expression of joy and sympathy on special occasions. Thus it has happened that two of these creatures as they sit opposite ono another and in front of two great heaps of green stuff, chewing their food' with indescribable gusto, seize each other’s hands in their enthusiasm at the delicious feast.

The professor, with all his knowledge, admits that it is difficult to describe the intercommunication among chimpanzees, apart from their greetings. It may, however, bo taken as positively proved that their gamut of phonetics—which contain elements common to humqn beings—can express only emotions, and never designates or describes objects. Similarly their gestures of face and body never describe objects. The range of these gestures is very wide, and tho register of emotional expression is very much greater than that of average human beings, because the animal’s whole body is agitated and not merely his facial muscles. He jumps up and down both in joyful anticipation and in impatient annoyance or anger, and in extreme despair—which develops under very slight provocation —flings himself on his back and rolls wildly to and fro. Ho also swings and waves his arms about above his head in a fantastic manner.

A considerable proportion of all their desires is naturally shown by direct imitation of the actions which aro desired. Thus one chimpanzee who wishes to bo accompanied' by another gives tho latter a midgo and pulls his hand, looking at him and making tho movements of walking in tho direction desired. One who wishes to receive bananas from another imitates the movement of snatching or grasping, accompanied by, intensely pleading glances and pouts. Human beings are often the recipient of invitations by a gesture of wliat the animals want done. Thus liana, when she wished to be petted, stretched her hand out towards us, and at tho same time clumsily stroked and patted herself, while gazing with eager pleading. There is a certain resemblance to our laughter in their rhythmic gasping and grunting when they are tickled, and probably this manifestation is physiologically remotely akin to laughter. On the other hand, the chimpanzee seems permanently incapable of understanding merry human laughter. Professor Kohler is quite unable to explain the custom of mutual personal “ inspection ” and skin treatment which everybody who goes to a zoo notices among monkeys. The skin treatment is distinctly social, for no chimpanzee shows so much interest in his own body if he is alone. He points out that some primitive peoples like to vary their looks by the simple method of tearing out hairs. Curiously enough, our chimpanzees at Teneriffe developed a passing fashion of tearing out handfuls of each other’s hair, on tho head, back, and shoulders—not, in malice or battle, but in expression of the skin treatment. _ The apo being “ plucked ” remained quite still and passive during the process. Chimpanzees love dancing. Two of them will swing round and round together like a spinning top. Or a whole group will combine m elaborate and semi-rhythmic motion patterns. A trusted human friend is allowed to share in these games with pleasure, as well as in other directions. Sometimes I only needed to stamp solemnly and rhythmically round and round a post twice for a couple of black figures to form my train. If I had enough of it and left them the game generally came to an abrupt end. The animals squatted down with an air of disappointment, like children who won’t play any more when their big brother turns away. Professor Kohler also shows that they understand photographs, and would probably enjoy the picture paper.

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ESD19250427.2.29

Bibliographic details

Evening Star, Issue 18925, 27 April 1925, Page 5

Word Count
1,211

ALMOST HUMAN Evening Star, Issue 18925, 27 April 1925, Page 5

ALMOST HUMAN Evening Star, Issue 18925, 27 April 1925, Page 5