Acquisition and Use of Mathematical Skills by a Linguistic Chimpanzee

Publisher Summary This chapter provides an overview of acquisition and use of mathematical skills by a linguistic chimpanzee. As of summer, 1976, Lana has demonstrated her competence in answering more and less questions directed toward discrete numbers of variable sizes of washers. As surface area and mass were randomly varied in the selection of the washers on any trial, Lana was only consistently rewarded for correctly labeling number. Lana's high test performance at the 89% level also suggested that number was the cue to which she was responding, especially as her errors occurred on the ratios with large numbers of washers or on the ratios with very similar component portions. The results from the two control tests further suggested that Lana was making her responses based on number of washers. Future mathematical research with Lana includes teaching her the names of precise numbers and the ordinal relationships involved among the numbers 1–10. It is conceivable that mental number manipulation in terms of summing (addition) might already be in Lana's repertoire of mathematical skills. If it is not, it is probable that such operations as addition, subtraction, and intersection can be taught to her as these operations have their correlates in environmental actions and linguistic operations. As Lana is also a language project chimpanzee, it may be possible to delimit the meanings involved in the linguistic operations of and by the mathematical operations of addition and intersection.