There has been surprisingly little publicity concerning the recent death of Washoe, the first signing chimpanzee on October 30, 2007. Washoe, matriarch of a research colony at Central Washington University's Chimpanzee and Human Interaction Institute, died of age-related causes at the ripe age of 42, far longer than she likely would have lived in the wild. Captured from her home in Africa in 1965, Washoe was originally sold to the United States Air Force are part of a group of "astrochimps". The ending of the space program led to Washoe being sent to live with Beatrix and Allen Gardner when she was 10 months old. They incorporated Washoe into their project on cross-species communication and began teaching her American Sign Language. Through careful work, Washoe was taught over 200 signs and observers at Central Washington University have reported the use of signing among the various members in the chimpanzee colony to which Washoe belonged.
The Washoe project came under criticism by Herbert Terrace, a psychologist at Colombia University, who began a series of experiments with a signing chimp affectionately named Nim Chimpsky. Although Nim learned 125 signs, Terrace concluded that he did not show any signs of the sequential use of signing that reflected human use of grammar. Nim simply used signs to obtain a desired end, not unlike what has been observed with other animals trained though operant conditioning. Terrace's conclusions, which he published in his 1979 Book Nim, placed him at odds with the Gardners who challenged his findings on methodological grounds. They considered the conditions under which Nim was taught to be too artificial and that the naturalistic setting in which Washoe and other signing chimps were raised was better suited to learning to communicate. Washoe also became notorious for biting off the middle finger of cognitive researcher, Karl Pribram, and essentially ending his career as a neurosurgeon.
Plans to assess whether Washoe passed on signing to her children were terminated when both of her offspring died as infants. Her death leaves only three other signing chimps in the small colony. It is uncertain whether additional chimpanzees will be added later.
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