The Person in the Ape

“Balloon!” the computer said. Kanzi pressed a red symbol that looked like an umbrella missing its handle. Two triumphant tones followed. “Gorilla!” Kanzi pressed on a yellow circle with a long, curling tail. Correct. “Cereal.” Right again.

So he got a few wrong, but that was due to just not paying attention. Then he got 2 in a row correct and that was due to intelligence? I think a lot of the ape intelligence research is very biased by the fact that the researcher wants a certain outcome. Animals can be very good at reading non-verbal clues. These trials have to be double blind, or else the ape may be able to pick up the slight frown or smile on the face of the tester as he is about to push a certain button. In addition, humans are very good at seeing patterns where there is none, and a pattern of randomness does not look like what our intuition tells us.

The communication of these non-human primates may be more the handler communicating than the primate itself.