Great Ape Trust, Buena Vista University alliance moves ape language to next level

Des Moines, Iowa – March 4, 2010 – Forty years ago, native Iowan Dr. Duane Rumbaugh’s decision to use computer interfaces instead of American Sign Language to communicate with primates forged new frontiers in the study of ape language and moved the science into a golden era of discovery. Now, an alliance between two Iowa institutions – Great Ape Trust, where the science Rumbaugh pioneered continues, and Buena Vista University in Storm Lake – is setting the stage for scientists to gain new insights into how bonobos and other great apes think

As part of the agreement, computer science and psychology professor Dr. Ken Schweller will this fall take a semester sabbatical paid by Buena Vista to work exclusively with the scientific research center in Des Moines to develop computer platforms scientists will use to study great ape intelligence and language.

Because scientific investigation with Great Ape Trust’s colony of six bonobos occurs across many disciplines, Schweller’s innovations will add structural cohesiveness to researchers’ work and allow them to look at bonobo intelligence in ways they haven’t been able to in the past, said Great Ape Trust Director of Scientific Research William M. Fields.

He said Schweller’s technology innovations will become the thread that ties together The Trust’s trans-disciplinary approach to research, which accommodates scientific collaborations with bonobos in fields such as experimental psychology, linguistics, cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, philosophy, neurology and other sciences of the brain and mind, as well as physics, robotics and artificial intelligence, art, and music. More than a dozen disciplines are potentially touched by the scientific trajectory at Great Ape Trust, which is based on the 40-year research corpus of Rumbaugh, Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Fields.

“The addition of Ken Schweller to ape language research is significant and powerful because he is not only a high-level programmer, but also an experimental psychologist who is extremely knowledgeable in the 40-year body of work, and is able to understand and locate himself into the challenges of apparatus and research support with brilliance and immediacy,” Fields said. “We are fortunate to have an experimental psychologist of Dr. Schweller’s caliber, who also teaches computer science, join our research.”

Fields compared the potential impact of Schweller’s innovations to the pivotal change that occurred when comparative psychologist Rumbaugh, a Maynard, Iowa native, embarked on what came to be known as the LANA (Language Analogue) Chimpanzee Language Project.

Recognizing the methodical flaws in research trials employing American Sign Language, among them that apes were potentially open to cuing and their movements subject to over-interpretation, Rumbaugh developed a lexigram keyboard on which abstract symbols represented words. The innovation is credited with moving the study of ape language beyond the question of whether apes can understand spoken English and communicate with humans to more complex inquiries about what lexigram utterances mean within a socio-culture framework.

Lana, the female chimpanzee involved in the first in what would become 40 years of computer-enabled research trials, showed not only that the ape could discriminate between lexigram symbols on a keyboard and associate them with ideas, but was also able to sequence words grammatically and make novel utterances. In general, findings of the LANA Project and subsequent investigations with chimpanzees Sherman and Austin and the groundbreaking work with bonobos occurring at Great Ape Trust today, still stand: Though animals may not have the full capacity of humans for language, some animals have impressive competencies for language skills, including speech comprehension.

Schweller, a longtime supporter of the work of Rumbaugh and Savage-Rumbaugh, “brings an important historical perspective of ape language research to our current program,” Fields said; “He understands the larger picture and deliberately seeks to contribute where his expertise is strong.”

“I’m very excited about BVU’s new partnership with Great Ape Trust,” Schweller said. “This will afford our students tremendous opportunities to get actively involved in cutting-edge research on ape cognition, memory and language. The kind of research being done at The Trust is truly interdisciplinary and will attract students to BVU with interests in computer science, biology, psychology and the language arts. Nothing is more motivating for future scientists than the opportunity to participate in such truly significant and important work.”

Schweller and his computer science students have been working with Great Ape Trust researchers over the past three years on various projects, including construction of a robot, called “Robo-Bonobo,” that members of the bonobo colony at Great Ape Trust can control with a joystick to interact with people. Two years ago, students in Schweller’s first-year seminar class developed a site on the Second Life 3-D virtual world platform, which showcased the work being done with The Trust’s bonobos.

Schweller, in collaboration with the Buena Vista students, also developed software programs to test the apes’ mathematics abilities, constructed various games and puzzles to test ape cognition and problem-solving abilities; helped modify the lexigram keyboard the bonobos use to communicate with humans, developed a laptop version of the keyboard for field use, designed “match to sample” experimental software, and developed a training device to help humans learn to use the lexigrams.

Buena Vista President Fred Moore said the agreement with Great Ape Trust illustrates the university’s commitment to provide extraordinary experiences to undergraduate students.

“The work of Dr. Schweller is an exceptional example of the dedication of our faculty in creating opportunities for BVU students to explore areas of research and study that are often typically available only to graduate students,” Moore said. “This is the type of academic experience that can give our students a clear advantage when applying to graduate schools and entering the job market.”

Buena Vista University background

Buena Vista University is a regionally acclaimed university that relentlessly focuses on learning with innovative and imaginative programs. The faculty, staff and students set and meet the highest standards of academic achievement, character, conscience and compassion. To learn more about BVU, go to www.bvu.edu.