Was Nim just a beggar or was he really communicating? Bob and some of the others claimed he would remark about berries that found or other events that occurred but they never had any footage of him really having a meaningful discussion beyond a request. Don't get me wrong I was very impressed with what he was able to accomplish and I think its awful the way he was cast aide but I wonder if Herb had a point...
shareUnfortunately, it was a very flawed study. If you are going to use operant conditioning as a motivator, then you should expect results consistant with operant conditioning and, not surprisingly, that is what they found.
Now, you should be careful with the words you use. He was definitely "communicating", as even begging IS a form of communication. The issue at play is whether animals are capable of "language".
There are many indicators that certain animals, including chimps, are capable of deeper social interactions than displayed in this film/study. But communicating in the abstract requires much more than simply learning a few words.
Most of the recent studies (there has been a slight resurgance of late) have been done with dolphins and porpoises. One of the things these studies have tried to do is to provide a more balanced approach to the animals's ability to communicate back to us and/or focus on comprehension rather than their ability to mimic our actions for rewards.
Food for thought: consider how you would communicate with an alien species that makes sounds you cannot mimic properly (or uses some other form of communcation completely). You would likely try to find some rudimentary common-ground symolism to communicate. And for years, it would just exist as noun labeling without syntax or abstraction until a broader understanding could be reached.
I believe scientific consensus on Nim is that he learned a lot of words, but was completely unable to learn proper grammar.
He could definitely communicate, in that he could ask for things. But it would be like a severly retarded child just saying 'hunger' or 'cold'.
How far he could understand concepts like 'love' is pretty much anybody's gues. Of course linguists and zoolgists love to give their take, but in reality nobody really knows wether he expressed a genuine feeling or was just saying 'i love you' as a way of getting positive attention.