MONKEYS AND MANKIND.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 547, 5 March 1913, Page 7

MONKEYS AND MANKIND.

The New Education for Our

Simian Cousins

The George Washington University, an institution of learning located at the national capital of the United States, has started a simian annex, which might be described as a college for monkeys. The establishment is under the management of Professor Shepherd I Franz. As yet all the results obtained are not ready for formal publication, but there is enough information available to overturn many of the old ideas as to the mind of monkeys. The main conclusion drawn from the experiments so far is that monkeys have the same mind as man, only less of it. The importance of this is that the same thing cannot be said of any other animal. Monkeys bear a close relationship to man physically, of course, but what remained to be found out was how close was the relationship of mentality.

The most remarkable experiments have been by Dr. A J. Kinnamau. He secured for the purpose two Rhesus monkeys from India —of peculiar species, which is a sort of link between the monkeys proper and the baboons. As one feature of the work, he utilised a number of boxes, with thirteen different kinds of fastenings, including a lilt latch, a bear-down latch, a button, and even a lock and key—the problem in the last case being to put the key into the lock, turn it, and get the food inside. Three string devices were also used,, one of them requiring the pulling of a string to draw a receptacle containing the food into the cage. Not only did the monkeys learn how to operate the fastenings, after their own fashion, but they showed through practice a growing capacity to deal with new types of hooks or what not. This improvement, in fact, was very marked indeed. Furthermore, they exhibited an increasing ability' to pick out the fastenings as the essential point of difficulty in opening a box. Apparently an idea to be represented by the words projecting-thing-has-something-to-do-with-it . found lodgment in their minds. More interesting, however, were trials of other kinds which followed —one of these being a test with two tin cans, exactly alike. On the front of one can was displayed a blank card and on the other a similar card bearing a big black diamond. A bit of food was put in the latter receptacle. This was done hundreds of times, the food being always in the can with the black diamond : but neither of the monkeys could catch the idea at all. Other designs, such as four black horizontal bars, were placed on the rard attached to the can containing the food, but always with the same lack of success. The animals were unable to form in their minds an association between the design and food.

But it was different when contrivances were adopted of a kind properly calculated to appeal to the monkey mind. The cans were discarded, and in place of them two glass tumblers were used, covered with paper, one black and the other white. A bit of food was pnt under the black tumbler at each of a long series of trials ; never under the white —the idea being to find out if the animals cooid be made to associate in their minds the two concepts, black and food. The male Rhesus, first submitted to the test, chose right, wrong, right, wrong., wrong, right, right, wrong, right, then right every time. He made no more errors aft«r that, the association being fixed. It was the same way with the female, which made a few mistakes, and then chose the black tumbler every time. The problems of the box-fastea-ings were rendered more complex by attaching two or more different kinds to each door. For instance, a door might be secure* witfe a-hook, a button, a bolt, and a latch. "Hate rendered the task of opening 4&a recoi tades vastly more difficult, <rf course. Nevertheless, the monSwjge accomplished it, showing. >vsoiHterfirl improvement in the speed and kill in which they managed the combinations, dropping out the fran--1: ling.; that proved useless and tiara shortening the business. One of the tests applied *» t&e iron' eys in Washington to di with colours. Glass UimMjbm

wexe covered with Daper ofecSfturt

Dues —one blui\ another yellow, another red, and ;i , .ioi.h:r jriv-sii. These

were turned upside down and placed in a iow, a bit of food being put under the yellow tumbler. Only a few trials were required to enable a monkey to find out that the yellow was the one beneath which the food was hidden. If the morsel was shifted to the green tumbler for a few times, the fact was soon ascertained, and the animal would pick this one put. The conclusion drawn is that monkeys are unquestionably able to perceive and to distinguish colours. Similar tests were made with forms. Six small vessels of different shapes, each containing exactly half a pint, .were placed in a row at regular intervals on a board seven feet long. They were a wide-mouthed bottle, a small, cylindrical tumbler, an elliptical tin box, and a tall cylindrical can. All of y them were covered with white paper neatly, so as to present no differences to the eye, save in respect to shape.

A bit of food was put into the rectangular box, and in no other, through a long series of trials. The monkey, when permitted to approach would look all of the receptacles over in a fraction of a second. Of course, the order of arrangement of the boxes were changed on each occasion. It did not take the animal very long to ascertain that the rectangular box was the only one worth looking into. At first, after getting the morsel, he would look into the others hopefully, but later on he declined to take the trouble. When he hit upon the wrong receptacle, he would look into it, with hand uplifted to take the food, and, not finding the latter, would look into the next one. After the monkey had arrived at a point where he chose the right box off-hand practically every time, the food was put into another box, and with only a few preliminary errors, he would learn to pick out the new shape. NOVEL COMPETITION : CHILDREN BEATEN.

It was considered very important to find, out whether monkeys could count, and if so, to what extent. For this purpose there were prepared twenty-one bottles, wide-mouthed, and all exactly the same size, which were covered with white paper tc prevent the animal from seeing the morsel of food in any way except by looking in at the top. These were set in a row on a board, four inches apart. The food was put into the fourth bottle from the right end and kept there through a series of trials u»til the animals tinder picked it out every time. Then the mors»l was put into the third bottle from the left end, or the fifth, and so on. As a result it was ascertained that the male Rhesus was able to learn to count up to sis perfectly ; but the female could count only up to three. Dr. Rumanian's conclusion is thai monkeys do not really count. Probably they have a -perception of quantity—of plurality, rather than counting, in the proper sense of the word. A child, long before it can count, perceives the difference between one thing and two things, between two and three, between three and several, between several and many. It would not be surprising suggests Df. Kifonaman, if a clever monkey were able to distinguish from each other playing cards, from ace to ten ; but the cards would be distinguished through difference ol sense impression, and not through perception of numbers. Very remarkable, indeed, was the result of a competition between children and monkeys. Two children, three and live years of age, were brought before the row of tumblers just described, under exactly the same conditions as those to which the monkeys had been subjected. The only difference was that bright-colonred and very desirable marbles were used one, at a time, instead of morsels of food. The older child was able to locate .1, 2, and 3, but was not sure of higher numbers. The three-year-old child learned 1 and 2, found « more difficult, and failed entirely on the higher numbers. Thus it would seem that monkeys attain in one year (the two experimented with by Dr. Kinuaman were about twelve months old) to a development of the reckoning faculty superior to that reached by human beings in ' three to five years. But here the monkeys' ability to comprehend numbers and numerical relations probably reaches its limit, while that of man goes on almost indefinitely. Dr. Kinnaman set ap two little trees' in a room where the monkeys were at liberty. Tie animals took no notice of them until they began to bear bits of fruit and bread. Here the skill and ingenuity v hich they exhibited in~@ettrag food from the most maccessoxft; tips oi the branches became very interesting. They seemed to scan the Hmbs and to make plans for reaching th< morsels long before the thing was actually accomplished. Thns a mon':ey would go to a near-bv limb, examine the situation,, and determine upon a line of attack.

In one instance an apple was placed on the end of a stack fastened to a gas fixture and project ing horizontally out towards the middle of the room. K was sc high that the monkey cooJd no 4 reach it by leaping. One of tia little trees stood near. TBte a&unaJ ascended a long sAmfatr Kanb fiw feet away from t&e Hit weight bent the-"Hna»s%BtSßßtt aggie, and he won the -pzis». plishment of the feat «S£gßrt be re ferred to some pescepS&Bi of mathematics and the faur "Popular Science S&fcmgß. 1 ""