| Alex (parrot) |
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Alex has a vocabulary of around 100 Word s, but is exceptional in that he appears to have understanding of what he says. For example, when Alex is shown an object and is asked about its shape, color, or material, he can label it correctly. If asked the difference between two objects, he will also answer that, but if there is no difference between the objects, he will say “none.” When he is tired of being tested, he will say “I’m gonna go away, ” and if the researcher displays annoyance, Alex tries to defuse it with the phrase, “I’m sorry.” If he says “Wanna banana”, but is offered a nut instead, he will stare in silence, ask for the banana again, or take the nut and throw it at the researcher. When asked how many objects of a particular color or a particular material are on a tray, he gives the correct answer approximately 80% of the time. Preliminary research also seems to indicate that Alex can carry over the concept of four blue balls of wool on a tray to four notes from a piano. Intriguingly, Dr. Pepperberg is also training him to recognize the Hindu Arabic numeral “4” as “four.” As of [http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/050701_parrotzerofrm.htm July 2005], Pepperberg reports that Alex has the concept of Zero . IS ALEX USING LANGUAGE? Although Alex shows understanding of what he says, is he using Language ? He has a vocabulary of about one hundred words. He has even coined a new word. At first, he did not associate an apple with the word “apple” but instead with the word “bannery,” and since the other fruit names he knew at the time were “grape,” “banana,” and “cherry,” it could be considered to be a Linguistic Elision of “banana” and “cherry.” Dr. Pepperberg is currently training him to recognize English Phonemes , in the hopes that he might conceptually relate an English written word with the spoken word. However, according to Dr. Pepperberg herself, Alex is not using human language, but is rather using “complex two-way communication.” The communication system of parrots in the wild is poorly known. Parrots are highly social birds, and it seems likely that when humans are their companions, they attempt to use the communication system of those humans (language). Nonetheless, how these remarkable animals are able to come so close to human language is not known. Selected quotes Holding a colored cloth ball in front of the bird, Pepperberg asks ''What matter?'' in the kind of laboratory Pidgin she uses to train her subjects. Alex - who can identify wood, plastic, metal and paper, among other ''matter'' - clearly says ''wool.'' Having answered correctly, he's entitled to a reward - but he has to ask for it. Unlike animals in conventional conditioning experiments, he gets nothing unless he asks for it by name, after having given a right answer to a question. ''Want a nut,'' he says, and then happily begins nibbling away at the cashew he is given (Boston Globe, 18 May 1998) Pepperberg, listing Alex's accomplishments, said he could identify 50 different objects and cognize quantities up to 6; that he could distinguish 7 colors and 5 shapes, and understand "bigger," "smaller," "same" and "different," and that he was learning the concepts of "over" and "under." (New York Times, 19 Oct 1999) SEE ALSO
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