Monkeys can do simple grammatical rules but not rules with hierarchial structure

Posted by Bayle Shanks at 3:15 AM EST

“For example, the monkeys could master simple word structures, analogous to realising that “the” and “a” are always followed by another word. But they were unable to grasp phrase patterns analogous to “if… then…” constructions.”

(actually, in the study, the grammar that the monkeys could do was “A is always followed by B”, and what they couldn’t do was “Repeat A for some number of times, and then repeat B the same number of times”)

New Scientist article

Article in Science

Commentary in Science, with a list of some types of intelligence differences between humans and monkeys.

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