Reaction Paper About Chimps

Culture is a society’s shared and socially transmitted ideas and characteristics used to generate behavior and reflect behavior and other primates besides humans, like gorillas, chimps, and orangutans do, in fact, have culture. Chimps copy each other into adulthood developing cultural behaviors by imitating their peers and research on gorillas, chimps and orangutans have shown they use tools, communicate with each other and even mourn the deaths of each other. This research paper will explain how and why chimps do things like, imitate each other, mourn the deaths of their peers, communicate with each other and with humans, and create and use tools.
Chimps verbally communicate with each other with a series of different calls. They use alarm calls, mating calls, and greeting vocalizations (“About Chimpanzees,” n.d.). Researchers have identified more than 30 different calls and they can be heard up to 2 miles away (“About Chimpanzees,” n.d.). Each chimp has his or her own distinctive pant or hoot, so the caller can be identified (“About Chimpanzees,” n.d.).
Chimps also communicate with one another by using …show more content…
In captivity, Washoe was on the block to be auctioned off for biomedical research, but instead ended up with Drs. Allen and Beatrix Gardner, researchers from the University of Nevada (NhRP, 2012). These researchers “cross-fostered” Washoe meaning they raised her like a human child (NhRP, 2012). Because of this, Washoe adapted to human culture and was soon able to brush her teeth, dress herself, and play games (NhRP, 2012). More eminently, Washoe learned to speak human words (NhRP, 2012). By reason of chimpanzees having vocal cords that aren’t built for talking, researchers taught Washoe American Sign Language (ASL). By using her hands to speak, Washoe was the first to demonstrate that chimps can utilize aspects of what we call “language” (NhRP,