Progress & Plans

PROGRESS (Highlights)  |  Plans

Ever since Project Koko began in 1972, multimedia data has been carefully collected and analyzed and presented to the public via both scientific publications and general books and documentaries. Here are some of the highlights of 4 decades of interspecies communication research with gorillas: 

1. Use of Sign Language:  Established scientifically that gorillas like Koko and Michael can learn to communicate using a human sign language, in very sophisticated and comprehensive ways (over 1000 signs for Koko and over 600 signs for Michael).

2. Spoken Engish Comprehension:  Because caregivers regularly spoke to gorillas Koko and Michael as they learned sign language, the gorillas also learned to comprehend much of spoken English.

3. Koko is not Unique:  Demonstrated that the results obtained with Koko were not limited to Koko, by including Michael (a young male gorilla) in the project, and observing very similar capabilities, with personality-based differences. Hence, we will use the term "gorillas" throughout this list to mean "gorillas like Koko and Michael" with the implied hypothesis that these results apply to "gorillas" more generally. (Note:  we have observed similar capabilities in Koko's current companion, Ndume, who was not formally taught sign language.)

4. Inventiveness:  Gorillas can extend the sign language they learn from us by  a) adding their own natural gestures, b) inventing new names by combining existing ones (eg, FINGER + BRACELET to mean RING), and c) compounding known signs to produce the same "sound" as an unknown sign (eg, sigining an S at the brow to mean BROWSE, or making the sign for NEED on the knee for clarity). 

5. Emotional Range:  Discovered
that gorillas can express a full range of emotions, from the basic emotions of happiness, sadness, anger and pain, to more subtle emotions like frustration, embarrassment, guilt, anticipation, jealousy and boredom. For example, Koko has demonstrated a strong and long-lasting emotional response to losing her first kitten (All Ball) and about her desire to have a family that includes a baby (see video).  One of our planned projects will address Koko's level of emotional awareness more quantitatively (see GEARS below).

6. Empathy Hypothesis:  Observed that gorillas may have empathy for humans and other animals — not only contagious feelings and cognitive inference, but also via deduction (see Project 1, below, under Plans, where we will explore this hypothesis). Associated with empathy is our observation of Koko's extreme care and gentleness with other creatures (e.g., infant and older humans, kittens, birds and frogs) whom she was much stronger than, and how she controls her strength and weight to maintain that gentleness.  (Mister Rogers did a TV special featuring Koko on "Accepting Differences," based upon this admirable trait.)

7. Grammatical Use of Language:  Determined that gorillas can use human-taught sign language in a manner that includes elements of grammatical structure in common with human signers.

8. Rate of Sign Language Acquisition:  Determined that young gorillas (like Koko) acquire new signs more rapidly in their first few years than in later years, similar to the schedule of language acquisition observed in human children.

9. Sign Language Modulation:  In ASL and other forms of sign language, human signers often modulate a sign — by changing it's speed, size, number of repetitions, or location — to change the meaning as if preceding it with an adjective (e.g., GOOD -> VERY GOOD -> VERY VERY GOOD).  Our data include many examples of the gorilas modulating signs in this way, spontaneously.

10. Other Forms of Communication:  Learned that gorillas can use other forms of symbolic communication, including art (for explicit emotional expression and representationally), language cards (pre-printed English phrases that they can arrange in meaningful order), pointing to words, phrases and images in books and newspapers, videos, and on computers.

11. Vocalizations to Enhance Communication:  Learned that our gorillas continued to use intrinsic gorilla vocalizations or "calls" (eg, purring) either alone, or to augment other forms of communication with each other and their human caregivers.

12. Sense of Identity:  Discovered that gorillas can have a strong sense of identity.  For example, very early on, Koko began referring to herself as "FINE ANIMAL GORILLA"  when asked (see video below).  Later, when Koko became used to the concept of "person" — and that humans were people — she began answering the question differently, as "FINE PERSON GORILLA."   This also implies a sence of belonging to a group (or groups).

13. Paradigm Shift:  Our observations over time with Koko , Michael and Ndume, have collectively changed the common human paradigm about gorillas from one associated with “King Kong” (aggressive monsters) to one associated with “Koko’s Kitten” (gentle, caring, compassionate, tolerant, loving — and capable of grief from loss).

14. Benefits for Free-Living Great Apes: Some of our findings (eg, the true story of Koko's Kitten, published in both book and video form) have been shown to be a useful tool for conservation, as they evoke human empathy for gorillas.

15. Benefits for Captive Great Apes: These findings also have great potential for improving care in captivity, as they demonstrate that gorillas and humans can understand one another on a much deeper level than previously believed.

16. Benefits for Humans:   Finally, Project Koko has been beneficial for humans, beyond the satisfaction of scientific discovery, and the thrill of "talking with animals."   For example, teachers report (and we have experienced through presentations to local schools)  that young students exposed to "Koko and Michael" and to Dr.Patterson's and Cohn's lifelong dedication to this study are motivated to learn more about other species and our responsibility to them.   Some students decide to pursue careers in science and/or conservation as a result of this exposure.  We believe this is essential in order for the lessons of Project Koko to be fully realized and extended for the benefit of all great apes.


PLANS (2014 and Beyond)  |  Progress

While many of the above observations and discoveries could warrant a full follow-on research project, we’ve chosen to focus first on the following two projects, because of their relatively high potential benefits:

Project 1: Gorilla Emotional Awareness Research Study (GEARS)



Together, the observational and experimental components of the study will help us more rigorously test the hypothesis (based on Project Koko) that “gorillas have a level of emotional awareness that is very similar to that of humans.”   (For example, watch video.)


The GEARS project is under consideration for initial grant funding; we are hopeful it can begin by late 2014.  You can help ensure that vital research projects like this come to fruition by supporting the Gorilla Foundation.

Project 2: Digital Archival and Collaborative Analysis

The Gorilla Foundation has created thousands of hours of video data and tens of thousands of pages of textual data (research diaries), in a project that has thus far spanned 4 decades, 3 gorillas and many gorilla caregivers/researchers, supervised by founders, Drs. Penny Patterson and Ron Cohn. Much of this data is still in analog form (for example video tapes and film reels of the first 25 years) and needs to be digitized as soon as possible, for purposes of preservation, cataloging and subsequent research and analysis.

In this project, The Gorilla Foundation will partner with a major university to digitize all of its analog data, consolidate it with newly acquired digital data, and make it available for collaborative analysis by other researchers and possibly the general public (e.g., for crowd-sourced video sign transcription).

We are in the early stages of exploring such a partnership, but the project could begin as early as 2014 and be completed by 2016 (with your support).  The benefits are enormous — making accessible and usable the largest collection of interspecies communication data in history. This data can reinforce or form the basis of many research studies (including Project 1 above)  and moreover, can be used to design future interspecies communication projects that will have the advantage of being completely digital from the outset.

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Redwood City, CA, 94061

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