Clever Hans and the Stupid Chimpanzee : The Pitfalls of Language Research on Animals

Abstract

The author discusses language research based on experiments with a horse (Clever Hans) on one side and chimpanzee (Nim Chimpsky) on another side and notes the measure of an objectivity of scientific research, which can be greatly influenced by the emotional relationship between the animal and the researcher.

Keywords

• language research
• animals
• language
• semiotics
• semantics
• scientific objectivity