Nim Chimpsky

Nim Chimpsky (November 19, 1973 – March 10, 2000) was a <a href="/facts/Common_chimpanzee/JXSpFsHy">chimpanzee</a> used in a study to determine whether <a href="/facts/Great_ape_language/vPAFq7H8">chimps could learn a human language</a>, <a href="/facts/American_Sign_Language/MGTCXaGb">American Sign Language</a> (ASL). The project was led by <a href="/facts/Herbert_S._Terrace/9HCsR5GG">Herbert S. Terrace</a> of <a href="/facts/Columbia_University/Hlf1gw53">Columbia University</a> with linguistic analysis by <a href="/facts/Psycholinguistics/6fGeNXHU">psycholinguist</a> <a href="/facts/Thomas_Bever/DbGakgem">Thomas Bever</a>. Chimpsky was named as a <a href="/facts/Pun/97K1L3yE">pun</a> on linguist <a href="/facts/Noam_Chomsky/3rtpzlER">Noam Chomsky</a>, who posited that humans are "wired" to develop language.
Over the course of Project Nim, the infant chimp was shuttled between locations and a revolving group of roughly 60 caregivers, including teenagers and grad students, few of whom were proficient in sign language. Four years into the project, Nim became too difficult to manage and was returned to the Institute for Primate Studies in Oklahoma.
After reviewing the results, Terrace concluded that Nim mimicked signs from his teachers in order to get a reward. Nim learned a variety of signs through a process of reinforcement, but these signs were not a result of creative or spontaneous language use. Terrace argued that Nim did not initiate conversation or create sentences. Nim primarily learned this in order to get what he desired, such as food each time he correctly produced a sign. Terrace said that he had not noticed this throughout the duration of the study but only upon reviewing video tape. Terrace ultimately became a popularly cited critic of <a href="/facts/Ape_language/vPAFq7H8">ape language</a> studies. This pattern of learning where signs were used mainly as tools to obtain rewards—suggests that Nim did not acquire the complexities of grammar or syntax, which are central elements of human language. This finding strongly supports Noam Chomsky’s theory that humans are biologically predisposed to learn language in a way that is fundamentally different from animals, who lack this innate linguistic ability.

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Nim Chimpsky