From sign to action: Studies in chimpanzee pictorial competence

Many studies of children and apes realized in psychology address issues that are highly relevant to semiotics, but they often do so indirectly, or they use a terminology that is confusing and/or too vague from a semiotical point of view. The studies reported here, however, follow the paradigm of these psychological studies, but they are couched in an explicit semiotical terminology. They involve three classical semiotical issues: the nature of the sign, as opposed to other meanings; degrees and/or types of iconicity and their relevance for understanding; and the importance of temporal focus in different kinds of semiotical resources. The studies all involve one subject, the chimpanzee Alex, and all issues were studied looking at the actions accomplished by the subject after being exposed to different semiotic resources.