Monkeys versus Apes

Monkeys versus Apes

I have studied the development of vocalizations and communication in rhesus macaques monkeys at NIH during a summer as a research intern at an animal research facility.  Yes, I felt horrible about the research on the animals, and we joked about hearing animal sounds from the farm section that were like they had Frankenstein-style mixed several animals together.  And I felt bad about what they were doing to the monkeys, and how callous the researchers and research assistants and animal handlers could be about joking that "yeah, once you do something to them, they will never trust you again".  So what makes US humans so special?  We are certainly not more humane than other animals, and we are certainly more destructive BECAUSE of our socially and self-destructive tendencies.

 You know, we human are "great Apes".  We are not on the same tree at all from "monkeys".  So we are not "monkeys" and we should call ourselves and our children for cuteness purposes "little apes" if we are going to be accurate.   Apes include: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans.

Anyway...  people can recognize faces better than any other monkeys or apes, right?  There is some research about facial recognition in animals including monkeys and apes.  With the invention of facial recognition software, now in use everywhere - and your DMV picture is on a list somewhere, btw...  I guess it makes some of this research kind of obsolete in a way, but it is probably based on all that research.  But I just saw a show on the Nature channel or something like that about chimpanzees or baboons... OK, there's a big difference, I'll have to find that show on Youtube or Animal Planet website.  Anyway, it talked about the animals being especially good at facial recognition - and it's importance for their survival, in that they need to be able to know who is in their family line so there is no in-breeding, they can keep track of who is an alpha or where they are in the lineup so they don't make the wrong move with the wrong one, etc. 

We know it's about the combinations of differences in surface features:
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/278/1714/1964.abstract: 
"These results confirm the importance of surface-based cues for face processing in chimpanzees and humans, while the results were less salient for rhesus monkeys."

And so far, not even apes, who can learn sign language when taught explicitly in short sessions, are really learning a language through immersion as humans can do.  Humans create their own language version within their head to imitate the one they are using around them as babies and children.  Each generation is a new language, basically, but hopefully mostly the same.  

Wikipedia says that the crucial difference between humans and apes might be the ability to ask questions.  Perhaps this is why they make such a big focus on teaching kids to ask questions in school.  It is how we learn. It is not because of us having "language" either:
 "Joseph Jordania suggested that the ability to ask questions could be the crucial cognitive threshold between human and ape mental abilities.^[22] Jordania suggested that asking questions is not a matter of the ability of using syntactic structures, that it is primarily a matter of cognitive ability. Questions can be (and are) asked without the use of syntactic structures, with the help of the questions intonation only (like this is the case in children's early pre-linguistic development).

 Apes and humans use tools.  Apes don't seem to learn it from trial and error either.  They pick it up from observation.

 Also, there is this idea that the amount of apes' ability to use language is directly related to their general mental abilities, especially about humans asking "why does it not work?":  "One evidence that the limitations of ape language is inseparably intertwined with the limitation of ape non-linguistic cognition is that their inability to ask questions do have a counterpart in their investigation of their physical environment. Apes who fail to perform a practical task that is a modification of one they previously accomplished, but has been modified to be physically impossible, do not investigate why it failed. Instead they just keep trying in the same way for different periods of time, varying depending on their level of patience. It has been suggested that this skill may have emerged in early Homo as a result of increased brain capacity adaptive to regular problem solving through toolmaking.^[23]

 
There is also this article about the apes lacking the ability to create their own grammars (manipulate syntax) and why they can't talk like us being because their vocal chords don't close completely.  I DID not know that, so the Planet of the Apes thing with the frontal lobotomy or whatever they did was not real in the original - but I think in the modern ones they did something to their throats...

  "Sign language and computer keyboards are used in primate language research because non-human primate vocal cords cannot close fully,^[11][12] and they have less control of the tongue and lower jaw.^[13] However, primates do possess the manual dexterity required for keyboard operation.
Many researchers into animal language have presented the results of the studies described below as evidence of linguistic abilities in animals. Many of their conclusions have been disputed.^[14][15]
It is now generally accepted that Apes can learn to sign and are able to communicate with humans. However, it is disputed as to whether they can form syntax to manipulate such signs."