Monday, December 12, 2016

Talking Monkeys?

For years, researchers and scientists have been curious about primates and their ability to talk. We know that monkeys and chimpanzees are very smart, and have the ability to learn, but why don't they talk like us humans?

It is known that speech is one of the most powerful and a successful adaptation to humans. In order to understand why monkeys do not talk, researchers decided to do some experimenting. The first thing they looked at was the vocal tract of these animals, and realized that they are very similar to humans and have the ability to vocalize. But they believe that the monkey's brains are not wired properly to make speech and words. The adaptation of speech didn't only take place in our vocal tract, but also in our brains. As studies went on, the researchers discovered that monkeys can make a variety of different sounds, but also struggle with sounds, especially vowels.


http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/12/why-monkeys-can-t-talk-and-what-they-would-sound-if-they-could

6 comments:

  1. Apparently, the famous Koko the Gorilla (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koko_(gorilla)) has a tested IQ of between 70-90 according to Francine Patterson and Eugene Linden. See Chapter 14 of http://www.koko.org/sites/default/files/root/pdfs/teok_book.pdf

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  2. Hmm, I always wondered about this. Monkeys are very smart and have been shown to communicate effectively with humans which is why you would think they would be able to talk. Or at least say a couple words. Maybe in the next decades monkey will be able to evolve and talk.

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  3. Alot of apes and monkeys strictly communicate with one another using a form of sign language or body language, such as baring of teeth and pounding their chest.

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  4. I remember reading something similar to this. Apparently the same genes that allow humans to communicate and understand speech is found in rats. The only thing that keeps them from expressing it is underdeveloped vocal chords and a less developed brain. Pretty interesting that monkeys and rats are almost similar too.

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  5. We are much closer to the monkey's method of communication than we really. I found in multiple articles that the majority of our communication is through our body language (55%). Only 7% of how we communicate is directly through the words and 38% is through the tone of our voice when communicating a thought. We are very emotional creatures, much like the monkeys. Check out this website if you find this as interesting as I do!

    http://www.nonverbalgroup.com/2011/08/how-much-of-communication-is-really-nonverbal

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  6. I learned about this in my human evolution class with lague, monkeys and apes all have a high larynx which also makes the ability for speech far fetched. we humans have a low larynx which allows use to form sounds and words. The enlargement of the Broca's area has been tied in the the development of speech. We first start to see this tend of lowering larynx and enlargment of Broca's area around the time of Australopithecus. It was not until Homo erectus and Neanderthals. Good article and welly written!

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