Herbert Terrace was testing the hypothesis that if communication was taught to a ‘humanised’ chimp, we would be able to better understand how language is acquired in humans. The object of the experiment was to see whether the chimpanzee, named Nim Chimpsky, could learn human language, specifically American Sign language (ASL). The chimp would be raised within a family and taught human language as a child would.
The rationale behind this experiment was extremely popular and thus attracted government and institutional funding.
When considering the rational for this experiment it is necessary to discuss it’s ethical implications. Rather than trying to understand why Project Nim was deemed so important that it justified experimenting on an animal it is more accurate to state that before Project Nim, experiments such as this one didn’t undergo the same scrutiny as they would now due to the prevailing thought that animals such as Nim were not deemed sentient beings. Conversely, project Nim opened people’s minds to the idea that animals should have rights, including legal protection from research.
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Project Nim can be loosely split into two phases; for the first phase he lived with a family; for the second phase Nim lived on estate with scientists as his teachers. Whilst living with the family Nim underwent a key part of the experiment; becoming socialised as a human child. There was minimal effort made to formally teach Nim ASL. Herbert Terrace decided that to properly document Nim’s progress he would need to move him into a classroom setting where Nim would have target's and his language acquisition could be properly