http://www.iqtestnow.com/mag/koko.html
MAGAZINE:
INTELLIGENCE
Koko, movie star with an IQ of 90
She dreamed of talking to animals and she did! In
1971, Francine Patterson, an American, was visiting the San Francisco zoo when
she stopped before the cage of a baby gorilla. This moment that would develop
into a beautiful story is that of Koko, a gorilla considered to be the most
intelligent animal in the world. A psychology student then, Francine Patterson
wanted to study the language of apes in connection with her graduate studies.
Time passed and she ended up devoting her whole life to the study of apes.
Thirty years later, Koko speaks English, and even if she still doesn’t have an
Oxford accent, she understands nearly 2000 words in everyday language, as well
as hundreds of expressions in sign language.
With the help of pictographs representing different emotional states, Koko can
follow a conversation and even argue. In order to silence scandals that hounded
this no ordinary gorilla, Koko took an IQ test wherein she obtained a surprising
score of 90 points. This is close to what we consider as the average score of
human beings (100 points).
This work, which was conducted for many years, has been a breakthrough for
further studies on the intelligence of gorillas. Francine Patterson was able to
show that apes possess practically all aspects of human behavior in a less
developed scale. When we know that the genetic make-up of man is 95% similar to
that of a monkey, we get a better understanding of Koko’s extraordinary
abilities. Anthropomorphism? In certain countries, people wonder whether
gorillas rightfully belong to the zoo. In New Zealand, a law had been passed
recently which protects gorillas from illegal detention and scientific
experimentations.
