Project Nim Summary

Project Nim is a documentary that explains an experiment that took place in the 1970s in an attempt to teach a chimp who was named Nim Chimpsky American Sign Language (ASL). This project set out to analyze whether chimpanzees like Nim had the ability to use language in such a way that indicated that they understood it at a similar level of humans (Terrace book pg 31). Although the researcher, Herbert Terrace, who initiated this experimental investigation concluded that Nim's use of sign language was not consistent with human language and he was unable to form sentences in complex ways (Terrace 2014). Therefore, Nim was able to repeat the signs that he had learned from his teachers, but this could not be classified as a form of language in the

This film illustrates this paradox proposed by Erica Fudge in a large way, not only because Nim is part of a language study but because Nim is removed from his mother at birth and placed with a human family in which he is raised by his "foster mother", Stephanie Lafarge ( Terrace book pg 30). Stephanie had children of her own and raised Nim as if he were a human baby. Stephanie breastfed Nim, placed him in a diaper and clothing and allowed him to roam free around the house (Kappala-Ramsamy 2011). This reinforces that humans have a strong desire to connect with animals and we anthropomorphize an animal like Nim by having him interact with only humans and placing him in clothes in anticipation that Nim will become like a human even though he is very clearly not human (Kappala-Ramsamy 2011). Chimpanzees are biologically similar to humans and this makes it easier for humans to identify with the abilities and behaviours of a chimp. However, humans try to disconnect negative traits that chimpanzees portray from that of humans. For example, as Nim became older, he began to bite and scratch. The individuals in the documentary described this as his chimp behaviour coming out (Marsh 2011). Therefore, when Nim was sweet, playful and communicative, he portrayed human traits, according to the documentary (Marsh 2011). In contrast, when he displayed wild and aggressive behaviour, this was caused by him being a chimpanzee and this was no longer tolerated so Nim was sent away and locked in a cage with other chimpanzees where he later became a product of research in a lab (Cole