Francine Patterson

Penny Patterson
Born Francine Patterson
(1947-02-13) February 13, 1947
Chicago, Illinois
Citizenship United States
Institutions President and Research Director of The Gorilla Foundation
Alma mater University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (B.A., 1970)
Stanford University (Ph.D., 1979)

Francine "Penny" Patterson (born February 13, 1947) is an American animal psychologist. She is best known for teaching a modified form of American Sign Language, which she calls "Gorilla Sign Language", or GSL, to a gorilla named Koko beginning in 1972.

History

Patterson is the second oldest of seven children and daughter of C. H. Patterson, a professor of psychology, and Frances Spano Patterson. She was born in Chicago and moved with her family to Edina, Minnesota, when she was young, and then to Urbana, Illinois. Her mother died of cancer when Patterson was a freshman in college and the youngest of her siblings was just five years old. This triggered her interest in developmental psychology, a theme which pervaded much of her later work.

Patterson earned her bachelor's degree in psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1970. She attained her Ph.D. in 1972 from Stanford University, with her dissertation Linguistic Capabilities of a Lowland Gorilla, on teaching sign language to Koko and Michael, another Lowland Gorilla, who died in 2000.

Currently, Patterson serves as the President and Research Director of The Gorilla Foundation. The foundation was founded with her longtime research colleague Ronald Cohn in 1978 using monetary support from a Rolex Award. The Gorilla Foundation has been trying to move from its current home in Woodside, California to Maui, Hawaii.[1]

Patterson is an Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Santa Clara University and a member of the Board of Consultants at the Center for Cross Cultural Communication in Washington, D.C.. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Gorilla journal.

Media

Patterson is also an author of non-fiction works, including The Education of Koko, Koko's Kitten, Koko-Love!: Conversations With a Signing Gorilla, and Koko's Story. All of these books deal with her personal experiences with signing gorillas.

Patterson and her work with Koko are the subject of Barbet Schroeder's 1978 feature-length documentary Koko: A Talking Gorilla.

Controversy

Patterson's work has garnered some controversy as several former employees have questioned her scientific methods and findings, her attention to the welfare of the gorillas, and her overall professionalism. One allegation, made by former employees, said that she would routinely show her nipples to Koko and demand that other employees, both female and male, present their nipples to the gorilla. A sexual harassment lawsuit over this matter was settled out of court.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Honolulu Advertiser Article
  2. ↑ Hu, Jane C. (August 20, 2014). "What do talking apes really tell us?" slate.com
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