Journal

The Japanese journal of neuropsychology

[Vol.29 No.2 contents]
Japanese/English

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ArticleTitle Human speech and the chimpanzee
Language J
AuthorList Shozo Kojima
Affiliation Kyoto University
Publication Japanese Journal of Neuropsychology: 29 (2), 96-103, 2013
Received
Accepted
Abstract Although findings of the auditory and vocal functions of the chimpanzee are important to understand the evolution of human speech, there have been only a few studies. It is difficult for the chimpanzee and other nonhuman primates to acquire intermodal matching tasks using auditory stimuli, and to train vocal behaviors. I presented my experiments on the auditory and vocal functions of the chimpanzee. First, I described basic auditory and vocal functions: auditory sensitivity, the perception and repertoires of human vowels and vowel-like sounds (grunts) of the chimpanzee. Then, acquisition of auditory-visual intermodal matching task using sound-producing objects was reported. It took two or three years for a female chimpanzee to acquire the task. Once she mastered the task, transfer to other sound-producing objects was easy. Especially, she showed an excellent ability to identify members of her group by vocal sounds. However, she did not understand auditory words in the same task. Lastly, training of vocal operants was reported. It was difficult for her to require (name) objects by voices. She uttered [a] when she asked for bananas and [o] for milk, but she showed no further progress. The vocal development was compared between humans and chimpanzees. The chimpanzee did not reach the Oller's third, Expansion or Vocal play stage and did not utter babbling. Thus, there were differences in auditory and vocal functions between humans and chimpanzees. It was suggested that gestural 'language' preceded human spoken language.
Keywords speech, chimpanzee, auditory-visual matching to sample, vocal operant, vocal development

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