Infant Chimpanzee and Human Child: A Classic 1935 Comparative Study of Ape Emotions and Intelligence (Series in Affective Science) [Hardcover]

the late N. N. Ladygina-Kohts (Author), Frans B. M. de Waal (Editor), Boris Vekker (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195135652 | ISBN-13: 978-0195135657 | Publication Date: March 14, 2002 | Edition: 1

This edition presents the first complete English translation of N.N. Ladygina-Kohts' journal chronicling her pioneering work with the chimpanzee, Joni. The journal entries describe and compare the instincts, emotions, play, and habits of her son Rudy and Joni as each develops. First published in Moscow in 1935 as a memoir in the Darwin Museum Series, this edition has 120 photographs, 46 drawings and an introduction by Allen and Beatrix Gardner of the Center for Advanced Study at the University of Nevada, as well as a Foreword and an Afterword by Lisa A. Parr, Signe Preuschoft, and Frans B. M. de Waal of the Living Links Center at Emory University.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A unique descriptive achievement...a healthy provocation to the modern reader's habitual psychological pigeon-holing...Today's students and other thoughtful readers should find in it an intriguing challenge: Much might be gained by convincingly filling the gap between the richness of the objective descriptions laid so generously before them and the justification of legitimate bases for ascribing particular states of emotion to these behaviors." -- Andrew Whiten, Science

"Ladygina-Kohts (1890-1963) did her research in relative isolation in Stalinist Moscow while American behaviorists were relegating the human mind to a mechanical device. She compared her observations of an infant chimpanzee in her laboratory, 1913-16, with those of her own son, 1925-29. Her book was published by the Museum Darwinianum, Moscow, as volume three of its series of scientific memoirs. Waal (psychology, Yerkes' Living Links Center, Emory U.) includes all original photographs and line illustrations, and assembles commentary by other contemporary primatologists."--SciTech Book News

"Part of the charm of the book is that it allows one to lean over the author's shoulder and share her sense of discovery as a multitude of similarities between the childhood preoccupations of ape and child were discovered for the first time by her and as the equally profound mental differences began to emerge . . .But the pride of place goes to Khots's analysis of emotions and their expression----a topic that was nearly taboo during behaviorism's dominance and is still being only haltingly addressed by animal researchers today. . . Her work is a model of good science insofar as her first priority was to describe and document. Her text is supplemented by a photographic gallery that, amazingly, remains unequaled in our image-conscious times . . . A final major value of Infant Chimpanzee and Human Child is that today's students and other thoughtful readers should find it an intriguing challenge."--Science

About the Author

Frans de Waal is C.H. Candler Professor of Psychology and Director of Yerkes' Living Links Center at Emory University, Atlanta.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 592 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (March 14, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195135652
• ISBN-13: 978-0195135657
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,240,954 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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5.0 out of 5 stars AN EARLY, OFTEN-OVERLOOKED COMPARISON OF HUMAN INFANT/CHIMP BEHAVIOR, July 14, 2010

By 

Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Infant Chimpanzee and Human Child: A Classic 1935 Comparative Study of Ape Emotions and Intelligence (Series in Affective Science) (Hardcover)

Nadezhda Ladygina-Kohts (1890-1963) did her research "as a relatively isolated pioneer in Stalinist Moscow." In this book she compared her observations beginning in 1913 of an infant chimpanzee (named "Joni") in her laboratory for 2-1/2 years with her later observations of her own infant son Roody (born in 1929). This edition also has an introduction by R. Allen and Beatrice Gardner (authors of books such as Teaching Sign Language to Chimpanzees).

Of course, our modern "humanitarian" impulses are shocked by passages such as the following: "One time, after (Joni) had bitten a boy, the chimpanzee was punished by whipping; he was beaten so harshly that the whip literally swished in the air. Nevertheless, he remained motionless and did not even show any intent to flee; he only curved his lips and scratched himself at the most painful spots sometimes."

She reports on Joni's use of tools: long sticks (to "scare cockroaches from the cracks in his cage"), nails (for digging in the ground), etc.

She notes significantly, "Joni imitates a dog's barking very well, but I have not noticed, in a 2-1/2 year period, any attempts on his part to reproduce or imitate even a semblance of intelligible human sounds."

She also makes the interesting statement, "Paradoxical as it might sound, I have to admit that, in my heart, both of them, Joni and Roody, take up an almost equal space."