Teaching American Sign Language to a Chimpanzee

Language learning ability is nature or nurture?

Gardner & Gardner's case study on Washoe.
Training methods used (IV): Imitation, shaping & reinforcement reward-tickling

3 observers, a sign had to appear at least once a day over a period of 15 consecutive days to be counted.

After 22 months, 30 signs had been learned (DV),
showed differentiation, transfer and combination,
demonstrated semanticity, generalisation, displacement and creaticity,
but structure-dependence.

Human Vs non-human animals ethical issues

Autistic child & Theory of Mind

'Triad of impairments' experienced by autistic children:
Impaired social interaction, social communication & imagination.


Can they represent the mental state of another person (T.O.M.)?

Baron-Cohen, Leslie & Frith's quasi-experiment.
Autistic, Down's syndrome & 'Normal' children were tested.


Test 1 Sally-Anne Test
1. Naming Question: Name the dolls
2. Reality Question: Where is the marble really?
3. Memory Question: Where was the marble at the beginning?
4. Belief Question: Where will Sally look for the marble?

Test 2 : Repeated Test 1 but the marble was put in the experimenter's pocket.

Control understanding, intelligence & maturation
Low ecological validity & Ethics

Reconstructive memory

Loftus & Palmer's eyewitness testimony of an automobile destruction What is memory?
Reconstructed & perceived

Experiment 1
How the change of verbs in the leading question distorted participants' memory?
Smashed, collided, bumped, hit, contacted 'About how fast were the cars going when they _____ into each other?'
Any demand characteristics or response bias?

Experiment 2 Smashed, hit & control groups to avoid demand characteristics in Exp1
1 week later, 'Did you see any broken glass?'

Memory consists of information processed during perception & information received later.

Pictorial Perception and Culture

All culture see as we see?
Ethnocentrism? Cross-cultural study

Deregowski's review on Hudson's research
Anecdotal (1 & 2) Vs. Empirical Evidences (3-7)
1. Robert Law: black & white photographs
2. Mrs Donald Fraser: profile pictures
3. The elephant-antelope picture
4. The impossible trident
5. The 3D-model building
6. Split-elephant drawing
7. Gregory's test

Aesthetic Vs. realistic/perspective preference
Let's take up the Sense Challenge

Mindfulness

Awareness of one's thoughts,
actions & motivation,
engenders insights & wisdom
in here & now,
origins in Buddhism,
focuses on being, heals all.

The best & feel good workout ever-
Cross-country,
Marathon & Running in the Human Race.

"You become what you think about"
~Francis Bacon