AFAICT this is highly disputed. Many people think that her handlers had an agenda, and that the purported examples of her combining words were her randomly spamming sign language to get treats. Raw data was never realeased, and no one was allowed to interact with or see them interact with Koko except her handlers.
It seems plausible that the purported examples are a case of selective reporting, wishful thinking, and the Clever Hans effect.
AFAICT this is highly disputed. Many people think that her handlers had an agenda, and that the purported examples of her combining words were her randomly spamming sign language to get treats. Raw data was never realeased, and no one was allowed to interact with or see them interact with Koko except her handlers.
It seems plausible that the purported examples are a case of selective reporting, wishful thinking, and the Clever Hans effect.
There are other apes, including Washoe and Kanzi, who have been observed to use language.
Admittedly, they weren’t very good at it by human standards.