What Is The Premack Principle? Definition And Examples

David Premack asked the question in his seminal 1971 article, Language in Chimpanzees, of whether apes could be taught language. Premack believed this to be an important question not just biologically but for the fundamental question of what language is.

Premack approaches this question in two parallel ways: through a list of examples and through creating a corresponding list of instructions for training organisms so that they can be taught these examples.

Premack (1971) defined exemplars as aspects of words, sentences, questions, and using language to teach language; concepts of class described through language such as color, shape, and size; the copula, which in linguistics is the word or phrase that links subjects to subject complements (such as is in “The cat is fluffy”); and the logical connector if-then.

Premack attempted to teach Cebus chimpanzees language through pieces of metal-backed plastic adhering to magnetized slates.

Trainers fed the chimpanzees and introduced the language system pieces gradually until the chimps placed the plastic piece on a “language board.”

The trainers gave the chimpanzees different types of fruits depending on the part of speech the word represented. Premack then attempted to test whether or not the chimpanzees had formed an association between the plastic objects and the parts of speech that they represented through two different tests.

The researchers found that the chimpanzee was aware of which word went with each fruit.The researchers changed the fruit donors such that each change in donor was associated with a change in the second language element given to the chimpanzee.

For example, to receive an apple with Mary present, the chimpanzee would have to signal “Mary apple,” and in order to receive an apple with Randy present, the chimpanzee had to signal “Randy apple” and not “Mary apple” or “apple Randy.”

Eventually, the chimpanzee in Premack’s 1971 paper was able to construct the sentence, “Mary give apple Sarah” (which would result in the chimpanzee getting the apple) and “Mary give apple Gussie” (resulting in another chimpanzee getting the apple).

Premack (1971) then used his study of the chimpanzee to test the hypothesis that the acquisition of language is the mapping of existing knowledge. The researchers placed two-ups in front of the chimpanzee and attempted to teach them the difference between the words “same” and “different.”

Again, the chimpanzee was largely able to differentiate between objects that were the same and different. The researchers then asked the chimp yes-no questions such as, “Is X different from X?: to which the chimpanzee was conditioned to answer no.

Additionally, Premack (1971) was able to introduce such concepts as color, shape, size, and so on through this reinforcement.

Premack’s 1971 paper reinforced the Premack Principle in that the researchers used a high-probability behavior (a chimpanzee wanting to eat various types of fruit) to reinforce a low-probability one (the chimpanzee learning the fundamentals of language).