Scientists have always thought that one of the basic differences between us and our closest evolutionary cousins, chimpanzees, has been the ability to perceive and process speech. But that might not be the case.
Scientists now suspect that a “common ancestor” of chimps and humans evolved with the capacity for speech - and the human ability to perceive and process it might be more to do with being exposed to language when we are very young than any innate ability.
Panzee can also interpret symbols, and can understand more than 100 spoken and digitised words - including a symbol for his own name.
Panzee还能理解符号和超过100个口语化和数字化的单词，包括表示它名字的符号。
Lisa Heimbauer, a researcher at Georgia State University's Language Research Centre, said: “I think our results just reinforce the fact that experience matters.”
