full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Frans de Waal: Moral behavior in animals

Unscramble the Blue Letters


The first tape you're going to see is two elephants who are released together arrive at the apparatus. The artpuaaps is on the left, with food on it. And so they come together, they arrive together, they pick it up together, and they pull together. So it's actually fairly simple for them. There they are. So that's how they bring it in. But now we're going to make it more difficult. Because the purpose of this experiment is to see how well they understand cooperation. Do they untrnsdaed that as well as the chimps, for example?

What we do in the next step is we release one eenahplt before the other and that elephant needs to be sarmt enough to stay there and wait and not pull at the rope — because if he pllus at the rope, it dprpasiaes and the whole test is over. Now this elephant does something illeagl that we did not teach it. But it shows the understanding he has, because he puts his big foot on the rope, stands on the rope and waits there for the other, and then the other is going to do all the work for him. So it's what we call freeloading.

Open Cloze


The first tape you're going to see is two elephants who are released together arrive at the apparatus. The _________ is on the left, with food on it. And so they come together, they arrive together, they pick it up together, and they pull together. So it's actually fairly simple for them. There they are. So that's how they bring it in. But now we're going to make it more difficult. Because the purpose of this experiment is to see how well they understand cooperation. Do they __________ that as well as the chimps, for example?

What we do in the next step is we release one ________ before the other and that elephant needs to be _____ enough to stay there and wait and not pull at the rope — because if he _____ at the rope, it __________ and the whole test is over. Now this elephant does something _______ that we did not teach it. But it shows the understanding he has, because he puts his big foot on the rope, stands on the rope and waits there for the other, and then the other is going to do all the work for him. So it's what we call freeloading.

Solution


  1. apparatus
  2. elephant
  3. understand
  4. disappears
  5. illegal
  6. pulls
  7. smart

Original Text


The first tape you're going to see is two elephants who are released together arrive at the apparatus. The apparatus is on the left, with food on it. And so they come together, they arrive together, they pick it up together, and they pull together. So it's actually fairly simple for them. There they are. So that's how they bring it in. But now we're going to make it more difficult. Because the purpose of this experiment is to see how well they understand cooperation. Do they understand that as well as the chimps, for example?

What we do in the next step is we release one elephant before the other and that elephant needs to be smart enough to stay there and wait and not pull at the rope — because if he pulls at the rope, it disappears and the whole test is over. Now this elephant does something illegal that we did not teach it. But it shows the understanding he has, because he puts his big foot on the rope, stands on the rope and waits there for the other, and then the other is going to do all the work for him. So it's what we call freeloading.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
yawn contagion 4
capuchin monkeys 4
animal kingdom 2
full understanding 2
rope disappears 2
body channel 2
animated head 2
bucket full 2
perfectly fine 2
evolved morality 2


Important Words


  1. apparatus
  2. arrive
  3. big
  4. bring
  5. call
  6. chimps
  7. cooperation
  8. difficult
  9. disappears
  10. elephant
  11. elephants
  12. experiment
  13. food
  14. foot
  15. freeloading
  16. illegal
  17. left
  18. pick
  19. pull
  20. pulls
  21. purpose
  22. puts
  23. release
  24. released
  25. rope
  26. shows
  27. simple
  28. smart
  29. stands
  30. stay
  31. step
  32. tape
  33. teach
  34. test
  35. understand
  36. understanding
  37. wait
  38. waits
  39. work