HBC

Viki Solves Stick and Tunnel Problem

Viki’s ability to imitate was first noticed in her play at an early age. As her skills developed, her human “parents” began to develop exercises specifically geared to gauge her imitation abilities and what effect they had on her learning. They implemented an imitative training program at the age of 17 months.

The program included problem-solving tasks, many of which were also presented to human children the same age as Viki and then to lab-raised chimpanzees. The children had much the same educational background as Viki. The results of the children, the lab-raised chimps, and Viki were then compared to determine Viki’s progress in relation to both human children and chimps of the same age.

The clip above is a re-enactment of the “stick and tunnel” problem, filmed about 6 months after the original solution. Before the solution was demonstrated, Viki was presented with the problem and the stick to see if she would be able to solve it on her own. During both that time and after the very first demonstration, Viki played with both the stick and the tunnel and showed no interest in finding the proper solution. However, after the second demonstration, she understood what was expected and solved the problem every time from then on. The four human children in the study also needed one to two demonstrations to solve the problem, and the lab-raised chimp had made no progress after 11 trials.