RIP alex

[Guest guest]

September 11, 2007

Brainy Parrot Dies, Emotive to the End

 

By BENEDICT CAREY

He knew his colors and shapes, he learned more than 100 English words, and

with his own brand of one-liners he established himself in television

shows, scientific reports and news articles as perhaps the world

s most famous talking bird.

 

But last week Alex, an African gray parrot, died, apparently of natural

causes, said Dr. Irene Pepperberg, a comparative psychologist at Brandeis

University and Harvard who studied and worked with the parrot for most of

his life and published reports of his progress in scientific journals. The

parrot was 31.

 

Scientists have long debated whether any other species can develop the

ability to learn human language. Alex

s language facility was, in some ways, more surprising than the feats of

primates that have been taught American Sign Language, like Koko the

gorilla, trained by Penny Patterson at the Gorilla Foundation/Koko.org in

Woodside, Calif., or Washoe the chimpanzee, studied by R. Allen and

Beatrice Gardner at the University of Nevada in the 1960s and 1970s.

 

In 1977, when Dr. Pepperberg, then a doctoral student in chemistry at

Harvard, bought Alex from a pet store, scientists had little expectation

that any bird could learn to communicate with humans, as opposed to just

mimicking words and sounds. Research in other birds had been not

promising.

 

But by using novel methods of teaching, Dr. Pepperberg prompted Alex to

learn scores of words, which he could put into categories, and to count

small numbers of items, as well as recognize colors and shapes.

 

 

The work revolutionized the way we think of bird brains,

said Diana Reiss, a psychologist at Hunter College who works with

dolphins and elephants.

That used to be a pejorative, but now we look at those brains

at least Alex

s

with some awe.

 

 

Other scientists, while praising the research, cautioned against

characterizing Alex

s abilities as human. The parrot learned to communicate in basic

expressions

but he did not show the sort of logic and ability to generalize that

children acquire at an early age, they said.

 

 

There

s no evidence of recursive logic, and without that you can

t work with digital numbers or more complex human grammar,

said David Premack, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of

Pennsylvania.

 

Dr. Pepperberg used an innovative approach to teach Alex. African grays

are social birds, and quickly pick up some group dynamics. In experiments,

Dr. Pepperberg would employ one trainer to, in effect, compete with Alex

for a small reward, like a grape. Alex learned to ask for the grape by

observing what the trainer was doing to get it; the researchers then

worked with the bird to help shape the pronunciation of the words.

 

Alex showed surprising facility. For example, when shown a blue paper

triangle, he could tell an experimenter what color the paper was, what

shape it was, and

after touching it

what it was made of. He demonstrated some of his skills on nature shows,

including programs on PBS and the BBC. He shared scenes with the actor

Alan Alda on the PBS series

Look Who

s Talking.

 

 

As parrots can, he also picked up one-liners from hanging around the lab,

like

calm down

and

good morning.

He could express frustration, or apparent boredom, and his cognitive and

language skills appeared to be about as competent as those in trained

primates. His accomplishments have also inspired further work with African

gray parrots; two others, named Griffin and Arthur, are a part of Dr.

Pepperberg

s continuing research program.

 

Even up through last week, Alex was working with Dr. Pepperberg on

compound words and hard-to-pronounce words. As she put him into his cage

for the night last Thursday, she recalled, Alex looked at her and said:

You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you.

 

 

He was found dead in his cage the next morning, Dr. Pepperberg said.

 

 

I never thought about the universe, it made me feel small

Never thought about the problems of this planet at all

Global warming, radio-active sites

Imperialistic wrongs and animal rights! No!

Why think of all the bad things when life is so good?

Why help with an 'am' when there's always a 'could'?

Let the whales worry about the poisons in the sea

Outside of California, it's foreign policy

I don't want changes, I have no reactions

Your dilemmas are my distractions

I never looked around, never second-guessed

Then I read some Howard Zinn now I'm always depressed

And now I can't sleep from years of apathy

All because I read a little Noam Chomsky

I'm eating vegetation, 'cause of Fast Food Nation

I'm wearing uncomfortable shoes 'cause of globalization

I'm watching Michael Moore expose the awful truth

I'm listening to Public Enemy and Reagan Youth

I see no world peace 'cause of zealous armed forces

I eat no breath-mints 'cause they're from de-hoofed horses