Tuesday, June 30, 2020
‘If You Like Your Insurance, You Can Keep It’–Until You Can’t
Shahid Buttar and Rebecca Parson June 30, 2020
https://citizentruth.org/if-you-like-your-insurance-you-can-keep-it-until-you-cant/
Lack of healthcare is a death sentence.
(Common Dreams) In the first 10 Democratic debates, moderators asked candidates 21 questions about how they planned to pay for social programs like Medicare for All.
Yet when it came time to bail out corporations with trillions of dollars as part of coronavirus “relief” bills, suddenly the question of “How will you pay for it?” went up in smoke.
Meanwhile, 47.3 million workers have filed for unemployment, and the claim that “If you like your employer-based plan, you can keep it,” has been revealed for the fiction it is. How do those Americans keep their employer-based plan? They can’t. They’re unemployed.
Millions of Americans now face the loss of their health insurance. That’s in addition to the 27 million Americans who were uninsured before this crisis. Coverage is still available through the Affordable Care Act, but insurance companies are exploiting the increased demand, ratcheting up their premiums and deductibles so high that many are stuck with insurance plans they can’t afford to use.
You would think that during the worst pandemic in 100 years, as we teeter on the edge of another Great Depression, that politicians would be leaping at the opportunity to stem the tide and stave off further deaths by ensuring we all have healthcare. But no, of course not. Why? Because 99% of them, like our opponents Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.) and Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), are bought off by the health insurance industry. So bought off, in fact, that Kilmer cosponsored a stand-alone bill to bail out the lobbyists who lobby on behalf of his health insurance donors.
Instead, we’re faced with mass death.
One in seven Americans said they would not seek health care even with clear Covid-19 symptoms, due to concerns about their ability to pay for it. Among people with an annual household income below $40,000, more than 20% would choose to forgo treatment for financial reasons.
Lack of healthcare is a death sentence.
Shame on you, Congress: bailing out lobbyists. Bailing out corporations. Bailing out the insurance industry.
And leaving us out to dry.
The insurance industry isn’t “broken.” It’s working exactly as it was intended to: to profit off death by providing the least amount of care possible for the highest profit possible.
The fix is in, and the American people are paying the price: with their life.
It’s time for Medicare for All: a single-payer health care system that guarantees equal coverage to every American—without copays, deductibles, or premiums. 69% of voters now support Medicare for All.
Medicare for All is the moral choice. During a pandemic, “an injury to one is an injury to all,” because one sick person can infect countless more.
We need Medicare for All now.
Everybody in, nobody out.
‘Absolute Robbery’: Gilead Announces $3,120 Price Tag for Covid-19 Drug Developed With $70 Million in Taxpayer Support
https://citizentruth.org/absolute-robbery-gilead-announces-3120-price-tag-for-covid-19-drug-developed-with-70-million-in-taxpayer-support/
“Taxpayers provided funding for the development of this drug. Now Gilead is price-gouging off it during a pandemic. Beyond disgusting,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
(By: Jake Johnson, Common Dreams) Consumer advocates reacted with disgust Monday to an announcement by Gilead Sciences that it will charge U.S. hospitals around $3,120 per privately insured patient for a treatment course of remdesivir, a drug which has proven modestly effective at speeding Covid-19 recovery times.
Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines Program, called Gilead’s pricing—which works out to around $520 per dose for non-government buyers like hospitals—”an offensive display of hubris and disregard for the public” and slammed the Trump administration for failing to ensure that the price of a drug developed with substantial taxpayer support is affordable for all.
Maybarduk pointed to Institute for Clinical and Economic Review research showing Gilead could still make a profit by pricing remdesivir at $310 per course.
“Gilead has priced at several thousand dollars a drug that should be in the public domain. For $1 per day, remdesivir can be manufactured at scale with a reasonable profit,” Maybarduk said in a statement. “Gilead did not make remdesivir alone. Public funding was indispensable at each stage, and government scientists led the early drug discovery team. Allowing Gilead to set the terms during a pandemic represents a colossal failure of leadership by the Trump administration.”
Public Citizen estimated in a May report that U.S. taxpayers contributed at least $70.5 million to the development of remdesivir.
US taxpayers spent $70,000,000 developing this drug. This is an absolute robbery. https://t.co/6qSMOlmqWF
— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) June 29, 2020
Shortly after Gilead’s announcement, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department said it reached an agreement with the pharmaceutical giant to purchase more than 500,000 treatment courses of remdesivir for American hospitals.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the United States is “the only developed country where Gilead will charge two prices”—one for government buyers ($390 per dose) and one for non-government buyers like hospitals ($520 per dose). The typical remdesivir treatment course consists of around six doses.
Unlike the U.S., the Journal notes, the governments of other advanced nations “negotiate drug prices directly with drugmakers.”
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), chair of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, said in a statement that “Trump’s refusal to stop pandemic profiteering with a stroke of a pen is a green light to other manufacturers to exploit this tragedy.”
Doggett said he is pressuring the Trump administration and Gilead to disclose the details of their agreement, including the sum the government paid for the 500,000 treatment courses of remdesivir.
On Twitter, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) condemned Gilead’s price-tag as “beyond disgusting.”
“Taxpayers provided funding for the development of this drug. Now Gilead is price-gouging off it during a pandemic,” said Sanders. “Coronavirus treatment must be free to all.”
Exclusive Interview, Dr. E Hanh Le Discusses The United States Battle Against COVID-19
Walter Yeates June 29, 2020
https://citizentruth.org/exclusive-interview-dr-e-hanh-le-discusses-the-united-states-battle-against-covid-19/
“Most researchers estimate that we will not have a viable COVID-19 vaccine until 2021, at the earliest.”
In total, the United States has had over 2.4 million confirmed COVID-19 (Coronavirus, 2019) cases since the onset of the virus at the beginning of 2020.
Over the weekend: Arizona, California, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah set records for COVID-19 related hospitalizations, while Florida recorded a state record 9,585 new cases on Saturday. Georgia, Nevada, and South Carolina each recorded a new daily high on Saturday, with 41 states seeing an uptick in new cases from a week ago.
Recently Citizen Truth was able to speak to Dr. E Hanh Le, Senior Director of Medical Affairs at Healthline, regarding the outbreak.
Is the United States beginning the reopening phase too soon? A number of countries like Australia, Japan, and New Zealand did not begin lifting quarantine until their daily cases were far lower than where the US currently is?
It’s a complicated calculation between local incidence numbers, hospitalization and death rates, and available
Dr. E Hanh Le of Healthline via Peter Samuels
medical resources. That said, every time any community opens again, there will be an inherent risk of increased transmission of COVID-19, but that doesn’t mean the community necessarily must experience a huge spike in cases again. There are still ways to mitigate risk, including reminding residents to continue to wear face masks while in public, especially if they are not able to maintain a physical distance of 6 feet or more. Also, it is still advisable to continue to practice good handwashing, particularly when returning home from public places such as grocery stores, gas stations, and public transit.
With daily COVID-19 cases where they are, is it nearly guaranteed that the United States will have to enter another quarantine period in several months?
We decline to speculate.
How close are doctors in the United States to developing a COVID-19 vaccine? If one is found, do you believe it should be administered free of cost to patients?
Most researchers estimate that we will not have a viable COVID-19 vaccine until 2021, at the earliest. Even when one is available, there may not be enough for all patients, which means that those at greater risk of severe complications from COVID-19 (e.g., people with certain health conditions) or those who have a greater risk of being exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus (e.g., healthcare workers), will likely receive the vaccine first.
The CARES Act mandates that most insurance companies cover COVID-19 testing and treatment at no cost to their members. The Act also applies to any COVID-19 vaccine that is recommended by the US Preventive Health Services Task Force and the CDC. As we have seen the devastating health and economic consequences of this virus in our country as a whole, we are hopeful that a vaccine will be offered for free to all individuals.
Does Healthline closely monitor recommendations from the World Health Organization? If so, what are the major lessons learned from the WHO regarding combating COVID-19?
Yes. Physical distancing and wearing face masks are good measures to help you reduce the risk of contracting the virus. Sheltering in place and physical distancing continue to be the best strategies to help prevent rapid, sharp increases in COVID-19 cases.
What mental health practices do you suggest people adapt to combat with the stresses related to living during a global pandemic?
Focus on your personal wellness with MEDS — Meditation, Exercise, Diet, Sleep. Know what resources and medical services are available to you. Reach out to people — it’s okay to share your vulnerability. Consume the news in measured doses – nonstop news coverage can be overwhelming and lead to unnecessary anxiety, which does more harm than good.
[In other words: "Kiss your ass goodbye."]
Revealed: Police Unions Spend Millions To Influence Policy In Biggest US Cities
Tom Perkins
https://portside.org/2020-06-29/revealed-police-unions-spend-millions-influence-policy-biggest-us-cities
Police unions and officers active in America’s three largest cities spend tens of millions of dollars annually to influence law enforcement policy and thwart pushes for reform, a Guardian analysis of local, county, state and federal campaign finance records found.
Reform advocates say the spending partly explains why police unions have defeated most reform measures in recent years, even as high-profile police killings of unarmed black men sparked waves of public outrage including the current national demonstrations against racism sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The Guardian identified about $87m in local and state spending over the last two decades by the unions. That includes at least $64.8m in Los Angeles, $19.2m in New York City and $3.5m in Chicago. Records show that most spending occurred during the last 10 years as contributions and lobbying dramatically increased in most jurisdictions.
At the federal level, police officers and their unions have spent at least $47.3m on campaign contributions and lobbying in recent election cycles, according to Maplight data and US Senate and US House records.
“The power of their money runs very deep,” said Hamid Khan, director of Stop LAPD Spying, a grassroots anti-surveillance watchdog group. “[Local governments] have become rubber-stamp bodies in which police power is never challenged.”
Governments have become rubber-stamp bodies in which police power is never challengedHamid Khan, Stop LAPD Spying
The totals include payments to city council members and state legislators, as well as lobbying costs. The amount that police unions have spent during these periods is probably even higher as incomplete state campaign finance data makes it nearly impossible to pin down the true figure.
Several unions contacted by the Guardian did not respond to requests for comment. But Tab Rhodes, president of the Los Angeles County Professional Peace Officers Association (PPOA), wrote in a recent letter to its 8,000 members that the union needed more money to “establish collaborative relationships” with lawmakers.
Though the PPOA and sheriff’s department have spent more than $10.4m on political contributions in recent years, Rhodes is soliciting $2m more in annual donations from members.
Political spending is one of two tools police unions use to influence politicians. Industry observers who spoke with the Guardian stressed they also effectively portray reformers as “soft on crime”, and lawmakers have feared being branded as such.
However, public sentiment has shifted hard against police in the wake of Floyd’s killing, and now many expect to see a jump in political spending to block renewed reform efforts.
“Law enforcement is going to spend its money defensively – instead of pushing for changes in the law that work to their benefit, their primary goal is one of self-protection,” said Dan Schnur, a professor of political communication at the University of California, Berkeley, and campaign finance reform advocate.
The shocking images of Los Angeles police violence during the Floyd marches were preceded by decades of similarly dramatic and unsettling attacks on often peaceful civilians. The incidents are tied to deep controversies over racial profiling and a range of other serious systemic internal problems at the LAPD.
“Problems are constantly exposed but nothing happens because there’s zero oversight at all,” Khan said. “That goes to show the power of the police unions – people don’t want to touch any of this and the police get more money and resources.”
Activists say political spending is partly to blame, and union money flows to lawmakers who are supposed to be reforming the department. The Guardian identified more than $21.6m in state and local political spending by the Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL), which represents nearly 10,000 LAPD officers.
It and other Los Angeles county police unions strategically direct funding at key players, including Herb Wesson Jr, chair of the council’s ad hoc committee on police reform. Wesson has received at least $751,000 from police unions and faced heavy criticism for using his role to make it more difficult to hold officers accused of wrongdoing accountable. He did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.
Meanwhile, the city’s public safety committee chair, Monica Rodriguez, has taken at least $111,000 from unions. Though she’s supported the department for years, she backs a proposal to cut $150m from the LAPD’s budget in the wake of Floyd’s killing. Police unions have now vowed to unseat her.
In total, current members of the council’s two police oversight committees have received about $1.3m from police unions.
The LAPPL also spends on those who hold police department purse strings. The city council budget committee chair Paul Krekorian this year helped advance a budget that included a 7% funding increase for the LAPD. In February, an independent committee that supports him received a nearly $25,000 donation from the LAPPL.
Spending on a single race is rising to record levels this year as police unions from around California have sent more than $2m to help the police-friendly incumbent district attorney Jackie Lacey take on George Gascón, a police reform supporter, in Los Angeles county.
Police unions also flex their muscle on statewide ballot proposals. California police union money in 2016 helped block a proposed ban on the death penalty while unions successfully worked to pass a counterproposal to speed up executions. The LAPPL has also given to hundreds of state legislators, and unions statewide have donated more than $752,000 to members of the state assembly’s law enforcement committee.
The activity is not restricted to the nation’s largest departments. The Peace Officers Research Association of California, a statewide union with membership that includes small departments, has spent at least $34m on campaign contributions and lobbying in recent decades.
Still, the true extent of police spending and its impact remains unknown. Some lobbying records in Illinois and New York are shielded from the public, and Samuel Walker, author of The Police in America, noted that the media, academics and civil liberties groups haven’t closely scrutinized unions’ spending or other activities until very recently.
“The unions have been remarkably unopposed since the early 70s, and that began to change with Ferguson, and is dramatically changing in the last two weeks,” Walker said. “We definitely need more sunlight on this issue.”
The day before George Floyd, this legislation was going nowhereJohn Kaehny, Reinvent Albany
But the Floyd protests are now having an impact.
A years-long battle to repeal 50-a, an unpopular New York state law that shields police misconduct records from the public, has often highlighted how effectively police unions use money to help block legislation they vehemently oppose.
The unions in recent years spent about $1.3m supporting vulnerable incumbent legislators who opposed the repeal and – despite intense pressure over the decades – efforts at repeal were repeatedly blocked, including by the governor, Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo dug in until police killed Floyd and officers brutalized protesters in the subsequent marches that erupted in the streets of New York City.
“The murder of George Floyd was just the tipping point,” Cuomo said recently as he later announced reforms that include a 50-a repeal and inadvertently highlighted the extraordinary circumstances often needed to pass legislation over police union opposition.
“The day before George Floyd, this legislation was going nowhere. It did a 180 after the Floyd protests,” said John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany, a New York nonprofit that advocates for government transparency.
Part of the solution is to give everyday residents calling for reform a voice equal to those of groups like police unions, said Chisun Lee, deputy director for the Brennan Center for Justice’s election reform program. Recently enacted rules that match small, individual campaign contributions with public dollars will give more power to reformers starting in the 2024 state and local elections.
“These sort of structural reforms may sound technical in a time like this, when the public is rightly focused on huge scandals,” Lee said. “But we need ways for the millions of people who are impacted by policing policies to be heard as campaign donors.”
Fact Check: Have There Really Been 500 Wildcat Strikes in June?
Chris Brooks
https://portside.org/2020-06-29/fact-check-have-there-really-been-500-wildcat-strikes-june
Have workers really “walked off the job at over 500 employers in the last 3 weeks alone”?
If you read the headlines on Payday Report, you might think so. But the evidence offered does not support this claim.
To be clear, there does seem to have been a large rise in worker walkouts and job actions since the coronavirus pandemic began rocking workplaces around the United States, something to which the site has been successfully drawing attention.
Collecting data on these strikes is difficult, because the Bureau of Labor Statistics only records strikes or lockouts involving 1,000 employees or more. It seems many of the work stoppages that have recently taken place around the country have been by much smaller groupings of employees. These actions are happening in both union and non-union workplaces, many happening as organic, desperate reactions to the failures of management to keep workers safe.
Despite the ubiquity of business reporting, there are few labor journalists covering all of these actions, so much of the reporting on the rising number of job actions has been anecdotal: Detroit bus drivers appear to have been one of the first groups of workers to strike and win safety demands; non-union apple workers in Washington’s Yakima Valley struck and won hazard pay and then stayed out on strike and won union recognition; Chicago nurses refused to leave the break room until they were given the personal protective equipment they needed; the Big Three automakers didn’t agree to shut down production in March until a wave of wildcat walkouts disrupted production.
In the absence of any government tracking and national reporting, Payday Report, the website of labor journalist Mike Elk, is attempting to fill the gap by collating and tracking information on workplace actions.
Unfortunately, digging beyond the headlines shows little evidence to back up the claim that we are currently experiencing the largest strike wave “since the closing days of World War Two,” as Elk claimed on a recent NPR interview.
To clarify, a strike is when workers collectively withdraw their labor to force their employer to meet their demands. By withholding what an employer needs, workers have powerful leverage. If you ask the boss for permission, or the boss voluntarily gets on board, that probably shouldn’t be called a “strike.”
A wildcat is a strike that is not authorized by the union. There are many reasons why a strike might not be authorized: it might be illegal, it might be in violation of the contract, it might not have been balloted by the union, the union leadership might not support the demands of the workers, to name a few. Wildcats are not just symbolic protests by employees, but are a species of strike.
Fact-checking the map
Many, likely most, of the 500 so-called “strikes” tabulated by Payday Report since the beginning of June are not strikes at all. A review of the evidence provided by the site shows that hundreds are actions taken by employers, not workers — such as choosing to close the business for the day — or are worker-led actions that are happening while workers on break or off the clock.
For example:
Payday claimed that the UAW “is planning to stop production on all assembly lines for 8 minutes and 46 seconds to honor George Floyd” as one example of the supposed BLM-inspired “strike wave.” But the UAW’s own press release about the silent vigil clearly states in bold text “Please do not stop work unless authorized.” Multiple autoworkers in GM, Ford, and Chrysler plants all verified that they participated in these actions and that they were not strikes, but a tribute organized by the UAW in partnership with employers.
Payday claims their map shows hundreds of workers participating in a BLM-inspired “Washington State General Strike” at “over 250 locations” across the state on Friday, June 12. Reviewing the actual map, the participating “strike” locations appear to be entirely based in the Seattle area. Further, the evidence provided for each “strike” is almost entirely based on a pair of local news reports (here and here) that list over 200 area businesses that voluntarily chose to close their businesses that day. Meaning, these were not worker-led strikes at all, but the voluntary political choices of small business owners who supported the day of action. According to the Seattle Times, none of the 150 unions affiliated with the Martin Luther King Jr. County Labor Council had asked their members to strike.
Payday claims their map shows that strikes happened in 109 locations around the U.S. as part of the “international strike of scientists and academics for racial justice” on June 10th organized by Particles for Justice and using the hashtag #ShutDownSTEM. Again, looking at the map locations, many of these so-called “strikes” were nothing of the sort. Included in this list are: the decisions by the president of the Boston Museum of Science and the Dean of the Harvard School of Medicine to shutdown their operations on that day (this is a decision by the boss, not the workers, so again, not a strike), an Oregon group organizing a webinar, Pennsylvania lab workers meeting and revising their group’s mission statement, a San Francisco group coming up with an organizational plan of action, and University of California observatory staffers attending an internal forum. Some of the “strikes” were literally nothing more than tweets of support, such as a tweet by the Cal State department of natural sciences and another from the University of Minnesota Libraries. Importantly, Particles for Justice does not conceive of this “strike” as a collective action to pressure universities, research centers, and other employers into adopting a set of demands. Instead, they said it should provide “Black scientists with a day of rest” and scientists who are not Black a day for discussion and reflection and to organize or participate in protests. As for union members, Particles for Justice says “you may need to take a vacation day” or “choose to take action in a different way, without formally declaring that you are on strike.”
Reviewing some of the other locations on the map that are counted towards the “500 strikes” that have allegedly happened over the past three weeks reveals much of the same:
44 of the “strikes” are from Chattanooga, Tennessee, but like the Washington State General Strike, they are seemingly not strikes at all — they are local businesses that voluntarily agreed to close their operations on Tuesday, June 16 in support of demands by local Black activists for the city to divest funding from the police and invest in social programs.
10 “strike” locations are based on a local news report of workers at New Jersey nursing homes who were organized by their union (1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East) to take photos and participate in a silent vigil during their breaks and shift changes. There is no strike or work stoppage reported. Likewise, in the case of 1199 members in the Bronx, the only evidence of a strike is a link to a Tweet with a photo of workers holding signs and the hashtag #walkoutforblacklives
The International Longshoremen’s Association organized actions at all East Coast ports, from Texas to Maine, from noon to 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 9 to honor George Floyd. These actions were planned by the union in partnership with the longshore industry employers. Labor and management even issued a joint press release announcing the planned tribute, which is what Payday cites. James Newsome, the president and CEO of the South Carolina Ports Authority even spoke alongside ILA local presidents at their protest.
Tell no lies, claim no easy victories
Payday Report claims to have identified more than 540 wildcat strikes since May 31. Boosting these numbers by mislabeling something a “strike” or “wildcat” makes for sensational clickbait headlines. A story that does this is more likely to be shared by an enthusiastic public that is hungry for good news.
It is also likely to catch the eye of journalists, especially those who don’t know better (and apparently some that should). Payday Report’s findings have been rebroadcast on Twitter and in other media outlets, including the Intercept and the Economic Policy Institute, creating an arguably distorted and unrealistic picture of what is actually happening on the ground around the country.
“Tell no lies, claim no easy victories” is an old adage among organizers. The same should apply to labor journalism.
Again, the project of tabulating all work stoppages, especially in relation to major developments like the coronavirus pandemic and Black Lives Matter uprising, is a very commendable goal. As far as I can tell, no government agency, research institute, academic, or other media outlet does this consistently. But there are reasons to be doubtful about Payday Report’s numbers.
Taking group photos during a lunch break is not a strike. Tweeting support for racial justice with “strike” or “walkout” in a hashtag is also not a strike. This is not to say that these aren’t worthwhile and laudatory actions — they are! But that doesn’t mean we should misidentify them or inflate them into being something they are not.
Why? It’s important to maintain some clarity about the strike tactic. Local business owners signing on to a call to shut down their operations for a day might superficially look the same as a strike (the business is closed and people are in the streets), but there’s a significant difference in whose power is being deployed. With so many businesses joining in symbolic actions to proclaim their support for Black lives, conflating this with striking runs the risk of letting exploitative employers off the hook by giving them good PR without examining how they actually treat their Black workers. It also potentially confuses workers that job actions can or should involve the blessing of employers.
Journalism that promotes a distorted picture of the labor movement is doing us no favors. Besides accuracy being important in and of itself, what is most worrisome is that this kind of equivocating reinforces bad organizing.
It creates the impression that strikes are easy to pull off — as though all you have to do is issue a press release and use a hashtag. Workers who tried to organize a strike in this way would quite likely expose their organizational weakness to the boss. Or take hasty actions without preparing for the boss’s response, which could be ruinous for the workers involved. Workers participating in their first action who see a coworker get fired might walk away not wanting to get involved again.
For those looking for hope, there are many examples of unions taking meaningful action to challenge police violence and systemic racism without striking. Teachers unions in Minneapolis and Denver helped lead the charge for their school districts to cancel their contracts with the local police department. Members of the Martin Luther King County Labor Council voted to expel the Seattle Police Officers Guild from the federation. Facing growing state and local budget deficits, teacher unions in Chicago and Los Angeles, two of the largest school districts in the country, are joining with racial justice groups to pressure their local governments into cutting funding for the police and redirecting those resources towards education, healthcare, and other social services.
We all want to cheer labor on, but we’re not doing it any favors by pretending there is a spontaneous wildcat strike wave unrolling in support of racial justice when that is not the case. Shifting the balance of power in society is going to take a lot of hard work and will require large numbers of workers taking concrete actions that involve significant risks. Labor journalism should help to illuminate how power works and where good organizing is happening — without sacrificing accuracy in reporting. A map that accurately catalogues instances of worker-led strikes would be an invaluable resource.
Humans and monkeys show similar thinking patterns
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200629090018.htm
Humans and monkeys may not speak the same lingo, but our ways of thinking are a lot more similar than previously thought, according to new research from UC Berkeley, Harvard University and Carnegie Mellon University.
In experiments on 100 study participants across age groups, cultures and species, researchers found that indigenous Tsimane' people in Bolivia's Amazon rainforest, American adults and preschoolers and macaque monkeys all show, to varying degrees, a knack for "recursion," a cognitive process of arranging words, phrases or symbols in a way that helps convey complex commands, sentiments and ideas.
The findings, published today (Friday, June 26) in the journal Science Advances, shed new light on our understanding of the evolution of language, researchers said.
"For the first time, we have strong empirical evidence about patterns of thinking that come naturally to probably all humans and, to a lesser extent, non-human primates," said study co-author Steven Piantadosi, a UC Berkeley assistant professor of psychology.
Indeed, the monkeys were found to perform far better in the tests than the researchers had predicted.
"Our data suggest that, with sufficient training, monkeys can learn to represent a recursive process, meaning that this ability may not be as unique to humans as is commonly thought," said Sam Cheyette, a Ph.D. student in Piantadosi's lab and co-author of the study.
Known in linguistics as "nested structures," recursive phrases within phrases are crucial to syntax and semantics in human language. A simple example is a British nursery rhyme that talks about "the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built."
Researchers tested the recursive skills of 10 U.S. adults, 50 preschoolers and kindergarteners, 37 members of the Tsimane' and three male macaque monkeys.
First, all participants were trained to memorize different sequences of symbols in a particular order. Specifically, they learned sequences such as { ( ) } or { [ ] }, which are analogous to some linguistic nested structures.
Participants from the U.S. and monkeys used a large touchscreen monitor to memorize the sequences. They heard a ding if they got a symbol in the right place, a buzzer if they got it wrong and a chime if the whole sequence was correct. The monkeys received snacks or juice as positive feedback.
Meanwhile, the Tsimane' participants, who are less accustomed to interacting with computers, were tested with paper index cards and given verbal feedback.
Next, all participants were asked to place, in the right order, four images from different groupings shown in random order on the screen.
To varying degrees, the participants all arranged their new lists in recursive structures, which is remarkable given that "Tsimane' adults, preschool children and monkeys, who lack formal mathematics and reading training, had never been exposed to such stimuli before testing," the study noted.
"These results are convergent with recent findings that monkeys can learn other kinds of structures found in human grammar," Piantadosi said.
The study's senior author is Jessica Cantlon at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of California - Berkeley. Original written by Yasmin Anwar. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
Stephen Ferrigno, Samuel J. Cheyette, Steven T. Piantadosi, Jessica F. Cantlon. Recursive sequence generation in monkeys, children, U.S. adults, and native Amazonians. Science Advances, 2020; 6 (26): eaaz1002 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaz1002