Jennie

by Douglas Preston

  Not everything about Jennie was cute and wonderful. She was a complex, intelligent, thinking being. She had a distinct and utterly unique personality. Like all of us, she had her unattractive qualities.

  Talk about greed! Jennie got possessive as she got older. There were things lying around that she considered hers. God forbid if you should touch them or pick them up. Once, I went into Hugo’s office and we were going to look over something at his desk. I started pushing that ratty old wing chair over to his desk. You know, the one Jennie used to sit in. And what happened? There was Jennie in the corner, displaying and bristling and barking at me. I was monkeying with her chair! [Laughs.] Sorry, no pun intended. Hugo then told me Jennie had to be locked in her room when the cleaning lady came, because she hated the lady moving around the furniture.

  Did Lea tell you about Jennie beating up the carpet? That’s a funny story. Lea had the living room recarpeted when Jennie was away at the museum one day. When Jennie came back, she ambled into the living room and suddenly all her hair was standing on end. She barked and backed out, grimacing in fear. And then she rushed back in and attacked the carpet. I mean literally attacked it. She stomped on it and beat it and pounded it and tried to tear it up, screaming her head off. She was furious.

  The point I’m making is that I don’t think there was anything unnatural in Jennie becoming more aggressive as she got older. All chimpanzees, whether in captivity or in the wild, become more assertive as they grow up. For heaven’s sake, human children are exactly the same.

  I suppose what I really mean to say is that chimps and humans share a great deal, including selfishness, cruelty, cowardice, greed, and a propensity to violence. Well, now, I don’t mean to make it sound all bad. Chimps also show such human attributes as love of family, kindness, altruism, friendship, and courage. The very worst and the very best. Simia quam similis, turpissima bestia, nobis!

  [EXCERPT from “Jennie Comes of Age,” in Psychology Today magazine, March 16, 1970. Used with permission.]

  In a long-running experiment at the Boston Museum of Natural History, a chimpanzee is being taught to communicate using American Sign Language. Jennie is being raised by Dr. Hugo Archibald, a curator in the Anthropology Department. Dr. Archibald found Jennie as a baby in the jungles of Africa. He brought her to America and he and Mrs. Archibald have been raising her as their own daughter. They live in a suburb of Boston. . . .

  The experiment is not the first attempt to teach chimpanzees American Sign Language. According to many primatologists, it shares something in common with these earlier experiments: it is fatally flawed.

  “This is a waste of NSF [National Science Foundation] money,” says Dr. Craig Miller of the University of Pennsylvania, a leading critic of language training of chimpanzees. Dr. Miller assembled a team of psychologists to study a two-hour videotape of Jennie signing to her trainer, Pamela Prentiss of the Tufts University Center for Primate Research. The tape was intensively studied using freeze-frame techniques. “One of our psychologists spent twenty hours analyzing six minutes of tape,” says Dr. Miller. “This was the most intensive study of chimpanzee ‘signing’ ever attempted.”

  The conclusion? Says Dr. Miller: “The chimpanzee is not using language. Period.” The cognitive scientists studying the tape found that most “utterances” of Jennie’s were preceded by use of the same signs by the trainer. Thus, Dr. Miller argues, the chimpanzee was merely repeating signs. A second problem is syntax. Neither Jennie nor any of the ASL-trained chimpanzees has mastered syntax. “Syntax is fundamental to the definition of language,” says Dr. Miller. “ ‘Dog bites man’ has a totally different meaning from ‘man bites dog.’ ” Without mastery of syntax, Jennie cannot be said to have “language” according to the usual definitionoftheterm.

  Dr. Miller also brings up the question of motivation. Every sign that Jennie made was aimed at the immediate gratification of some desire, usually food, a hug, or possession of a toy. “I defy these ASL researchers to get a chimpanzee to say anything that isn’t motivated by the prospect of an immediate reward,” he challenges. Another researcher who studied the tape termed Jennie’s signing “running on with the hands until she gets what she wants.”

  The Miller team’s analysis of the tape showed that Jennie interrupted a great deal and had not grasped the two-way nature of conversation. She rarely initiated conversations. Finally, her longer utterances did not add appreciably to the meaning and merely consisted of a multiplication of the same words.

  “The basic problem,” Dr. Miller contends, “is that these so-called researchers want so very badly to believe that apes have the potential for language. There is far too strong an emotional identification between researcher and subject for any kind of objective analysis. It would be like asking a mother to evaluate the intelligence of her son. What is needed here is a little rigor and emotional distance. As a start I would use a video monitor instead of a human being to teach. This would eliminate any possibility of cuing. And I would introduce rigorous double-blind controls. Finally, I would cut down on the background ‘static’—the confusion and lack of structure—by keeping the animal in a restricted, controlled environment. A big noisy household with kids and neighbors coming and going is not exactly an ideal research environment.”

  [FROM an interview with Dr. Pamela Prentiss.]

  Every time we tested Jennie, we discovered something new. Every single experiment opened up more avenues for research. It was such a heady time. The chimpanzee mind is so complex. The only thing was, we could never seem to limit the variables and create a “pure” experimental environment. We were always testing five things at once.

  Our psychologist, Sonnenblick, was interested in “intentional theory.” You must know all about that from Generative Grammar and Deep Structure. You did read that book, didn’t you? I know, it’s a little big. But how are you supposed to write about this stuff if you’re too goddamn lazy to . . . Excuse me, but this is important. At least read this. “Intentional Analysis, Prevarication, Abstractionalization, and Generalization in the Mind of an Ape.” It’s a short paper. You’ll find everything in there.

  The question Sonnenblick wanted to know was: Do chimpanzees know that we have intentions? Let me explain. Let’s say I accidentally hurt you. You will be less upset than if I deliberately hurt you. Right? Because you know my intentions. Now this is not like dogs. When you step on a dog’s tail, he’ll bite you whether you meant it or not. He doesn’t know your intentions. And he can’t know your intentions; he hasn’t got the brains. Up until then, we thought only human beings could interpret the intentions of another. So the question was: Can chimps know we have intentions? If so, can they figure out those intentions?

  We did this experiment to see if chimps could lie. Oh, Dr. Epstein told you about that? Good. Now listen. The experiment didn’t only show that chimps could lie. Jennie knew which person would share the banana and which person wouldn’t. That is, Jennie knew the intention of the person. Okay?

  Sonnenblick wanted to explore this idea further. This is complicated, so pay attention. Can chimps attribute intentions to a third party? He designed a very ingenious test. The test didn’t ask Jennie to solve a problem for herself. It asked her how a third person would solve a problem.

  Here’s what we did. We created a series of videotapes. Jennie had watched so much TV at the Archibald house that it was second nature for her to view a monitor. That was at least one good thing from all that television she watched. Mrs. Archibald would just park her in front of the TV. It was such a bother to her, having Jennie around. It was television that ruined her son, Sandy, too. Let me tell you—

  I’m off the subject. These videotapes showed people confronting a problem. Then we’d ask Jennie to solve the problem for them. For example, one tape showed a man trying to reach a bunch of bananas hanging from the ceiling. Shown nearby was a chair. When the tape was over we showed Jennie photographs illustrating two possible solutions to the problem. In one, the man was
lying on the floor with the chair on its side. He had fallen off the chair, you see. The second showed the man stepping up on the chair, which was now under the bananas. She was given the photographs and told to place the “right” one in a certain place and ring a bell when she was done. Then we would leave the room. This was to prevent any unconscious cuing on our part.

  She chose the correct solution. Naturally. So we showed her three more complex problems: a man shivering in a room with an unplugged heater, a man trying to get out of a locked cage, and a man trying to water a garden with an unattached hose. These were all things Jennie was familiar with, you see, in her home environment.

  Then we gave Jennie photographs of the solutions. The first pair showed the heater either plugged in or unplugged. The second showed two keys, one bent, the other whole. The third pair showed an attached hose and an unattached hose.

  Jennie got them all right. Just like that! It’s all here in the paper. I think in—well, let me see that paper. In twenty-four tries she got twenty correct solutions. Now look at this. She scored twice as high as three-and-a-half-year-olds given the same set of problems!

  Now we come to the most interesting example of all. Pay attention. Sonnenblick realized that there were several ways to interpret the results. Was Jennie choosing solutions because they were what she would do in the situation? Or what she would like to see the person do? Or what the person should do?

  Sonnenblick had a brilliant solution to this problem. You aren’t going to believe this. He used a “mean” assistant. Did Epstein tell you about this? He had an assistant dress up like a robber with a bandanna around his face and dark glasses. And the person did mean things to Jennie. Nothing physical, of course. Just mean. Like eat a banana without giving her any. Or ignore her when she signed Hug.

  We got it so Jennie really hated this fellow. When she saw him coming, she’d scream and threaten. And he made these growling noises and slunk around. Very amusing.

  Okay. So we took the “mean” person and showed Jennie a videotape of him trying to reach the bananas. Then we showed Jennie two pictures of chairs: one good, the other one broken with only three legs. She chose the chair with three legs! Can you believe it!

  Then we showed Jennie a videotape of the “mean” man trying to get out of a locked cage. We showed her the two keys. And she chose the bent key! She often made these choices with glee, laughing and spinning ’round and ’round. It was incredible.

  Do you see what was happening here? For people she liked, she chose the good solutions. For people she didn’t like, she always chose the unpleasant solutions, the catastrophes. So she was indicating what she wanted to see happen.

  Think about it. She was able to realize that the “mean” person intended to get the bananas and she was damned if he would! She was thwarting his intentions. Now if this isn’t proof that chimps can ascribe intentions to others, I don’t know what is.

  We did all kinds of experiments. Let’s see. You should read some of these papers here, where everything is explained. We wanted to know if a chimpanzee could count. No problem! As long as the number was small. We would put out five buttons, and then offer several trays with either five pebbles or four or six. We’d ask Jennie for the correct solution, and she’d select the five. Five was about as high as she could count reliably. When we went higher her scores dropped. By seven it was just about randomness. Although as we tested her she started to get better. If we’d worked on her I bet we could’ve taught her to add and subtract. No kidding.

  Now get this. She could understand fractions! We filled up a glass partway with water. Then we would offer her tokens that looked a little like pie charts. A three-quarters token, a half token, and a quarter token. Once she understood what was expected of her, she would always match the correct token with the correct amount of water in the glass. We did the same experiments with lumps of clay, with pieces of wood, and so forth.

  I could talk to you all day about these experiments. Read my papers. I’ve dug up some more offprints for you. Here. You’ll be amazed. Amazed.

  [FROM Recollecting a Life by Hugo Archibald.]

  Our family took an August vacation in Maine every year, at a saltwater farm originally bought by my father. It was located near a town called Franklins Pond Harbor, a fishing village along the shores of Muscongus Bay. The property had over a hundred acres of fields and woods and a half mile of rocky shoreline, with a small cove and cobble beach.

  These August holidays were a vacation for all of us, particularly Jennie. She was a very busy chimpanzee during the year, with ASL lessons three days a week, going to the museum and participating in cognitive experiments two days a week, and religious lessons once a week from Rev. Palliser. Our suburban Kibbencook neighbors would have envied Jennie’s schedule; had she been human, it would have been the fast track to Harvard.

  Sandy and Jennie were as close as human twins. They went everywhere together. As a result, there was not a morning that Sandy went off to school that Jennie didn’t become anxious and distressed. She could never understand why he had to go away. In Maine, however, everything was different. Jennie could spend all her time with Sandy. Sandy had no one else to play with, and they spent hours roaming the woods, fishing for crabs in the tide pools, looking for a rumored buried treasure on one of the nearby headlands. Jennie was allowed to run free in Maine. The nearest neighbor was half a mile away, and Jennie was far too cowardly to venture that far on her own. We could release her to play about in the fields and orchard, and we did not even have to keep an eye on her. If she broke a few branches, screamed, or threw apples, it was perfectly fine.

  Jennie’s freedom in Maine had a curious effect on her personality. Instead of making her more wild and difficult to control, it seemed to make her calmer and more obedient. Her life in Maine, I theorized, more closely replicated the free life that chimpanzees lead in the bush, and as a result she was happier and less anxious.

  Next to the house stood an old post-and-beam barn with a loft and hay mow. The interior of posts resembled a jungle gym and Jennie spent hours in the barn, climbing around and dangling from the heights. It worried Lea a great deal, and she tried to put a stop to it, but I pointed out to her that, after all, Jennie was a chimpanzee. Sandy was forbidden to climb on the beams, and that frustrated Jennie and Sandy alike. She would scamper out on a beam and start signing: Play, play, Sandy, play. Sandy would sign back No, Sandy not allowed. The barn loft had an old bed, where Jennie slept.

  The old apple orchard in the backyard was Jennie’s favorite place to play. It was like a jungle gym hanging with her favorite fruit. She climbed into the crown of a tree, where she could watch the comings and goings of the family, and eat apples until she was sick. She defended and protected her apples with vigilance. One morning we heard a scream and saw Jennie pile out of the barn and head down to the orchard, where two deer had the temerity to be eating her apples. She screeched and threw a rock at them as they bounded away in terror. None of us had the courage to pick apples when Jennie was around.

  I spent much time sitting on the stone porch and watching Jennie swinging in the orchard. She was most like the ape she was when playing in those trees, hooting and chattering to herself in between stuffing apples into her mouth. She could eat enormous quantities of apples; I once counted while Jennie ate twenty apples in a sitting.

  It was in the orchard where Jennie acquired a taste for alcohol. One late-summer day in 1969, we could not find Jennie anywhere, and Lea and Sandy went through the fields calling for her. They finally found her in the orchard, fast asleep in the tall grass. When they woke her up, she acted groggy and unnatural. She waddled back to the barn and got into bed, which was highly unusual in the middle of the day. She was fine the next morning, and bright and early we watched her heading straight for the orchard. There, she began scooping rotten apples off the ground and eating them, although there were many ripe apples in the tree. We wondered why, until she began to stagger around like a drunk, laughing a
nd tumbling through the grass, and then we understood: she was becoming intoxicated on the fermented fruit.

  Jennie always insisted on trying everything that we ate or drank. She had demanded sips from time to time from our evening cocktails, but she had always grimaced and spat out the liquor. Shortly after the apple incident, we were sitting around the living room, having our cocktail, when Jennie spoke up.

  Jennie drink.

  Jennie drink this?

  Jennie drink drink.

  I handed Jennie my gin and tonic. She sipped it and made a face, but to our great surprise she gulped it down. I quickly snatched it out of her hand.

  Jennie drink! she signed frantically.

  Lea and I were appalled. We had no idea what a strong cocktail would do to a forty-pound chimpanzee.

  No, no, I signed. It looked like Jennie was working herself up to a tantrum about being denied a drink, when suddenly the expression on her face changed. She stood up straight as if she had heard a distant noise, looked around, and then a maniacal grin spread over her face.

  “Uh oh,” said Lea.

  Jennie looked around and gave a low hoot. Then she climbed up on the sofa and sat back with that wonderful smile on her face, and watched us through half-lidded eyes.

  After that, Jennie wanted to have a drink with us every night. Juice or Pepsi would not do; she wanted something stronger. Lea put up a strong resistance to her drinking alcohol, but she had developed the taste and knew perfectly well that we had something special in our glasses. She countered Lea’s efforts with one magnificent tantrum after another, and finally Lea gave up.

  “Go ahead and drink yourself silly,” she shouted, handing Jennie her cocktail. Jennie drank it quietly and settled back on the sofa with those same lidded, contented eyes.

  Lea and I had several talks about the ethical aspects of letting Jennie consume alcohol. Was it good for her? Would it damage her psychologically? Would she become dependent on liquor? In the end, it was Jennie’s responsible behavior with alcohol that settled the question. Drinking seemed to affect her as it would an adult. It did not make her excited or angry, but rather calm and relaxed, and she never wanted to drink more than we drank or wanted to keep drinking when we stopped. She never had more than the equivalent of one drink, as we mixed them weak. She had all the hallmarks of a responsible social drinker.