Gua the chimpanzee raised as a human baby

The history of psychology is replete with unusual studies and experiments that would hardly be justified or possible today. The reason is that many of these studies were based on experimentation with young children, adolescents or people with some kind of mental or psychiatric disorder, all of them unable to decide or understand the effects of this.

One of these experiments was that of the chimpanzee Gua, carried out by the psychologist W. no. kelloggs. It is an investigation about the behavior and learning in which Gua grew up for months in the within a family, with the intention of checking if the chimpanzee could be educated like the rest of the children.

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As father and daughter: the chimpanzee Gua and W. no. kelloggs

In the 1930s Winthrop N. Kellogg, a psychologist and professor at Columbia University specializing in the processes of conditioning, learning, and human behavior, set out to investigate differences between animals and humans in terms of learning and behavior.

For this, Kellogg adopted a two-month-old female chimpanzee and introduced her into her home with the intention of to educate her in the same way that he did with hers, her son Donald, who at that time was not even a year old. age. For several months, Kellogg raised them as if they were brothers., dedicating the same attention, affection and care to each of them with the aim of contemplating and analyzing the evolution and learning of both.

The animal chosen for the study was given in Gua's name and, unknown to her, her goal was to reveal how At that moment, some kind of distinction began to be made between the processes and advances in learning between an animal and a human.

The result: something unexpected

After nine months of living together, the results were not at all as expected by Kellogg, since, in summary, Gua ended up being "humanized" to the point of learning more quickly and efficiently than his son, and the little one ended up developing behaviors typical of a chimpanzee such as tasting everything with his mouth or emitting howls and grunts like Gua.

Such was the degree of learning of the little one that a large part of the idioms and habits that he had learned from Gua would remain intact throughout his life.

The product of this investigation materialized with the work The ape and the child, published in 1931 and which was not exempt from criticism and controversy. In his text, Kellogg details each and every one of the learning activities and games that he carried out with both of them, as well as the effects they had on the children.

As a consequence, the North American psychologist received very tenacious and merciless criticism that they accused him of having subjected his son and the animal to an experiment that would leave a mark on both forever. The impact of the criticism hit deep into Kellogg, who ended up acknowledging that he had been wrong.

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How did the experiment between calf and baby develop?

At the beginning of the investigation, it focused on collecting data about the physical state of both Gua and little Donald. Both Kellogg and his wife, accompanied by a group of researchers, dedicated themselves to collecting data such as weight, blood pressure or reflexes, to then start learning activities and tests.

Over the next 9 months, Kellogg and his wife raised Gua the same way they raised her son, as if they were siblings. Recording the data in filming and carefully describing each and every one of the changes or advances in each of the little ones.

The data obtained by Kellogg and his team focused on aspects such as the memory, the ability to draw, vocalization or language, manual dexterity, locomotion, resolution of problems, reactions of fear and apprehension, obedience, and even responsiveness to tickle.

What was the results?

During the time of the study, Kellogg she observed how Gua developed a fascinating ability to adapt to a human environmenther, to the point of taking orders and following guidelines much better than her "brother" Donald. Other of the many behaviors learned by Gua were related to the ability to ask for a person, give kisses to other people and even learned to eat by herself in the same way as humans or to bathe herself alone.

On the other hand, Donald had one characteristic trait: he was a much better imitator. While Guia in the outstanding student, which she was able to discover before Donald the functions and utilities of the objects and showed a better understanding of the different games and activities they performed, the small human only dedicated himself to imitating or reproducing what the chimpanzee toward.

As a consequence, little Donald also began to imitate some of Gua's gestures, behaviors and language, using grunts, snores and animal noises and experiencing a noticeable delay in language development and notable communication difficulties. This is one of the reasons why, despite Gua's progress, Kellogg decided to stop the experiment after nine months of testing. After this time, he separated the two "brothers" and Gua was returned to the Orange Park Zoo, the place where she was taken and to which she could not adapt, dying the following year.

As for Donald, he had already reached the age of 19 months at the end of the experiment and yet he was only capable of expressing a small number of words, whereas any child his age should have at least a repertoire of fifty and be able to begin to form sentences and words. prayers. Fortunately, he later came to compensate for this disadvantage, and even completed university studies.

What conclusions were drawn from this study?

Regarding the learning processes, Kellogg concluded that, at least during the infant stage, children are highly influenced and that in its first years of life its reasoning and intelligence abilities can be comparable to those of an animal with intelligence comparable to those of a chimpanzee.

However, later these paths separate, with human beings capable of developing a much higher level of intelligence and abilities.

Regarding the intellectual development of the chimpanzee, Kellogg's methods may reflect that these, in the first months of life, they have the ability to develop a language analogous to human, although are speech impaired. In the same way, although they are skilled in making simple tools, there is a huge difference in the capacity for ideation between chimpanzees and humans.