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.) The rate of sign acquisition could be taken as a measure of either the scientist’s skill or the animal’s intelligence.It was by now clearly recognized that different apes had different personalities.As one researcher commented, “Pongid studies are perhaps the only field in which academic gossip centers on the students and not the teachers.” In the increasingly competitive and disputatious world of primate research, it was said that Lucy was a drunk, that Koko was an ill-mannered brat, that Lana’s head was turned by her celebrity (“she only works when there is an interviewer present”), and that Nim was so stupid he should have been named Dim.At first glance, it may seem odd that Peter Elliot should have come under attack, for this handsome, rather shy man—the son of a Manin County librarian—had avoided controversy during his years of work with Amy.Elliot’s publications were modest and temperate; his progress with Amywas well documented; he showed no interest in publicity, and was not among those researchers who took their apes on the Carson or the Griffin show.But Elliot’s diffident manner concealed not only a quick intelligence, but a fierce ambition as well.If he avoided controversy, it was only because he didn’t have time for it—he had been working nights and weekends for years, and driving his staff and Amy just as hard.He was very good at the business of science, getting grants; at all the animal behaviorist conferences, where others showed up in jeans and plaid lumberjack shirts, Elliot arrived in a three-piece suit.Elliot intended to be the foremost ape researcher, and he intended Amy to be the foremost ape.Elliot’s success in obtaining grants was such that in 1975, Project Amy had an annual budget of $160,000 and a staff of eight, including a child psychologist and a computer programmer.A staff member of the Bergren Institute later said that Elliot’s appeal lay in the fact that he was “a good investment; for example, Project Amy got fifty percent more computer time for our money because he went on line with his time-sharing terminal at night and on weekends, when the time was cheaper.He was very cost-effective.And dedicated, of course: Elliot obviously cared about nothing in life except his work with Amy.That made him a boring conversationalist but a very good bet, from our standpoint.It’s hard to decide who’s truly brilliant; it’s easier to see who’s driven, which in the long run may be more important.We anticipated great things from Elliot.”Peter Elliot’s difficulties began on the morning of February 2, 1979.Amy lived in a mobile home on the Berkeley campus; she spent nights there alone, and usually provided an effusive greeting the next day.However, on that morning the Project Amy staff found her in an uncharacteristic sullen mood; she was irritable and bleary-eyed, behaving as if she had been wronged in some fashion.Elliot felt that something had upset her during the night.When asked, she kept making signs for “sleep box,” a newword pairing he did not understand.That in itself was not unusual; Amy made up new word pairings all the time, and they were often hard to decipher.Just a few days before, she had bewildered them by talking about “crocodile milk.” Eventually they realized that Amy’s milk had gone sour, and that since she disliked crocodiles (which she had only seen in picture books), she somehow decided that sour milk was “crocodile milk.”Now she was talking about “sleep box.” At first they thought she might be referring to her nestlike bed.It turned out she was using “box” in her usual sense, to refer to the television set.Everything in her trailer, including the television, was controlled on a twenty-four-hour cycle by the computer.They ran a check to see if the television had been turned on during the night, disturbing her sleep.Since Amy liked to watch television, it was conceivable that she had managed to turn it on herself.But Amy looked scornful as they examined the actual television in the trailer.She clearly meant something else.Finally they determined that by “sleep box” she meant “sleep pictures.” When asked about these sleep pictures, Amy signed that they were “bad pictures” and “old pictures,” and that they “make Amy cry.”She was dreaming.The fact that Amy was the first primate to report dreams caused tremendous excitement among Elliot’s staff.But the excitement was short-lived
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