who asked the first question? - International Research Center For ...

342• David McNeill, discussing Washoe’s problems in forming interrogative andnegative questions, wrote: “The reason she did not [produce the simplest negatives andquestions] must have something to do with the degree of internal organization theyrequire” (McNeill, 1980:152).• Premacks suggested that Sarah’s failure to ask questions was “due to itsinability to recognize deficiencies in its own knowledge.” (Premack & Premack,1983:29).Both of these suggestions point to the fact that the mental processing in ourclosest living relatives is different from human mental processing, and circumstantiallypoint to the possibility of a genetic difference between the apes’ and humans’ mentalabilities.I can not help myself repeating that if the apes had the ability to ask questions,they would be asking innumerable questions of their trainers, very much like the 2-3 yearold children whom they so much resemble in their curiosity and syntactic comprehension.• Questions and mental retardation.Interaction between thequestion phenomenon, intelligence and language seems particularly interesting in thelight of different cases of mental retardation. Neurologically, language and intelligenceseem to be independent (at least partially; see Aitchison, 1996:39-43; 2003), because: (1)individuals with immense problems of language and speech production can have intactintelligence (some forms of Broca's aphasia and cases of Specific Language Impairment.Review: Pinker, 1994:48-50); or vice versa, (2) severely intellectually impairedindividuals might possess grammatically fluent language and perfect speech(hydrocephalic children, schizophrenics, Alzheimer's patients, some autistic children andWilliam syndrome patients. Review: Pinker, 1994:50-53). As for the questionphenomenon, it seems to be connected with intelligence rather than language and speech.I suggest that intact intelligence would always contain the ability to ask questions, while,in at least some forms of mental retardation, fluent speakers may lack this basic cognitiveability.A study of the genetic components of some forms of autism could giveinteresting results, as autistic children find it notoriously difficult to learn questioningbehavior. At the same time, it seems that autistic children lack not only the questioningbehavior but they lack curiosity as well. It would be particularly interesting to checkwhether there are any instances where curiosity is present but the ability to ask questionsis not.• Questions and Genie:Do we learn to ask questions?Another very important question about human questioning behavior is whether welearn to ask questions at some early stage of development, and if we do, how we learnthis. Most of our mental abilities, including genetically predetermined languageacquisition, depend on learning, or “triggering” the genetic mechanisms, and it would benatural to expect that our ability to ask questions is learned at some stage as well.