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Alex African grey parrot.
Since 1977 he has been the subject of a
running experiment under animal psychologist
Irene Pepperberg, initially at the
University of Arizona and currently at
Brandeis University.
Alex had a vocabulary of around 100 words as
of 2000, 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 Arabic
numeral “4” as “four.”
As of July 2005, Pepperberg reports that
Alex has the concept of zero.
The name Alex is actually an acronym, A.L.EX.,
standing for Avian Learning EXperiment.
Contents
1. Is Alex using language?
2 .Criticisms
3. Selected quotes
Is Alex using language?
Although Alex shows understanding of what he
says, skeptics question whether he is using
language. He has a contextually tested
vocabulary of about one hundred words, and
has even coined a new word. At first, he did
not associate an apple with the word “apple”
but instead with the word “banerry,” 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/portmanteau 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.” This means that Alex
is able to translate a concept as he
understands it into a form comprehensible to
humans by using his knowledge of English (as
demonstrated by the "banerry" example, which
suggests that to Alex at least, an apple has
more in common with cherries and bananas
than with grapes). English cannot be assumed
to have an inherent meaning for Alex, being
rather a set of symbols which are
meaningless by themselves (e.g. utterly lack
etymology) but can be reliably mapped to
concepts as the parrot understands them.
Indeed, Alex speaking English would compare
better with someone writing down spoken
language and then passing this on to a deaf
person.
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 animals
are able to come so close to human language
is not known.
Criticisms
Some in the scientific community, notably
Noam Chomsky, are highly skeptical of
Pepperberg's findings, pointing to Alex's
alleged use of language as merely operant
conditioning.
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 the concepts of
"bigger", "smaller", "same", and
"different," and that he was learning "over"
and "under". (New York Times, 19 Oct 1999)
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