RIP KoKo

I was super fascinated with Koko as a kid. As I got older and did more research, especially once I started studying linguistics and communication in college, it became clear that the story was perhaps not as it was presented and, while she clearly did know some signs, there are serious questions as to her ability to spontaneously communicate or understand language in the abstract.

In other words, it seems like a lot of her signing was coached or responsive in nature, and even then usually required a great deal of "interpretation" by her primary handler. She almost never generated signing without significant prompting. Still an interesting story, but there was unquestionably some carny stuff going on there, shades of Clever Hans the Counting Horse.