Language Research Center

Affiliated with Georgia State University

Approximate number of chimpanzees: 1

Language Research Center
Department of Psychology
Georgia State University
University Plaza
Atlanta, GA 30303

http://www2.gsu.edu/%7Ewwwlrc/

The Language Research Center (LRC) is operated by the Department of Psychology in Georgia State University’s College of Arts and Sciences on a wooded 55-acre facility south of Atlanta in Decatur, Georgia. LRC is home to chimpanzees and monkeys. (1)

History

Dr. Duane Rumbaugh, an experimental psychologist, began language studies with chimpanzees in association with Georgia State University. The studies taught chimpanzees and bonobos using a computer-monitored keyboard to communicate using lexigrams, or abstract symbols. (2) The language of communication is referred to by researchers as Yerkish, after the Yerkes Primate Center.

Chimpanzee use

Four chimpanzees—Lana, Sherman, Panzee, and Mercury—are used in “a wide array of comparative cognition studies: spatial memory, delay of gratification, numerical cognition, analogical reasoning, and cooperation” at LRC. (3) In addition, current projects at LRC also study vocal communication in nonhuman primates. (4)

Financials

The LRC is or has been supported by grants from several government agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (particularly the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development), the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Department of Defense. (5)


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