New Symbols
Premack was able to demonstrate that Sarah could understand how to decode a symbol stream after training. First she had to learn the token name-of and then learn that some new, but real objects had the name-of fig token1 and crackerjack token2.
She learned
- Real fig name-of fig token1
and
- Real crackerjack name-of crackerjack token2.
She was tested with
- fig token1 "?" Real crackerjack
which she answered correctly with
- fig token1 Not name-of Real crackerjack
Finally, with the trainer placing a ripe fig on the table, and the tokens fig token1, crackerjack token2, give, Mary, Sarah, orange, banana, Sarah produced the new sentence
- Mary give fig token1 Sarah
and with the trainer placing a crackerjack on the table, Sarah produced the new sentence
- Mary give crackerjack token2 Sarah
Read more about this topic: The Mind Of An Ape
Famous quotes containing the word symbols:
“And into the gulf between cantankerous reality and the male ideal of shaping your world, sail the innocent children. They are right there in front of us—wild, irresponsible symbols of everything else we can’t control.”
—Hugh O’Neill (20th century)
“The use of symbols has a certain power of emancipation and exhilaration for all men. We seem to be touched by a wand, which makes us dance and run about happily, like children. We are like persons who come out of a cave or cellar into the open air. This is the effect on us of tropes, fables, oracles, and all poetic forms. Poets are thus liberating gods.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)