Alex Pepperberg and Revolutionizing "Bird Brain"
"Bird brain", first appearing in 1933 in Merriam-Webster's dictionary, is referred to a stupid person or scatterbrained. Many parrots, songbirds and hummingbirds would most likely take offense to this (of course, the anthropomorphic projection) but their capabilities of language and memory capacity have been increasingly studied.
An example of this language barrier being torn down and defying the notion that our closest ancestors in the great apes are the only ones capable of understanding communication through signing is Alex Pepperberg, the African Grey Parrot. In 1977, Dr. Irene Pepperberg acquired Alex with is an acronym for Avian Language Experiment (later being changed to avian learning experiment). The stronger the training and communication became, the more Alex picked up on emotional cues associated with language. The method used with training him was model/rival technique in which Alex would observe conversations between assistant and predominant trainer. There is a participating feature in which the trainer and assistant teach each other by exchanging roles. Of course errors were purposefully made so Alex, eavesdropping, could participate by correcting these errors. Showing cognitive processing and language enunciation with a brain about the size of an avocado pit, it is remarkable the associations he made in the various tests Irene had prepared for him.
In conjunction with his training, Dr. Pepperberg reinforced his learning by having him teach the other African Grey Parrots in the laboratory flock. Alex gained the nickname of the class clown as he would often times perch in on another individual parrot's training session and purposefully give them the wrong answers. When the particular individual did not enunciate Alex would telling them to "say it better". When the other individual bird would not answer how many clicks there were in that particular battery of tests, Alex added up the total amount of clicks, overran that bird, and responded. Blind tests were performed and Alex had understood the concept of comparing quantities, addition and subtraction, colors, items and their labels, and the concept of nothing or zero.
"The work revolutionized the way we think of bird brains. That used to be a pejorative, but now we look at those brains-at least Alex's- with some awe (Pepperberg 2008)."
Of course we can view these results on various videos and read about them through articles and books but one cannot help wonder about the scrutiny of purist scientists versus innovative scientists. Opening up new perspectives such as the way language is formed and what information can be garnered by human-nonhuman animal interactions and translating them to children especially of disabled and socially handicapped persuasion. In the book, Alex & Me, by Dr. Pepperberg there were several setbacks in her career namely due to the scientific ego. The purist scientific view was that animal language studies were basically archaic and simply an anthropomorphized illusion. Nonhuman animals have their own sense of basic language and humans have a multitude of languages (with various dialects) and innovation. Other scrutiny included that this study was no more than operant condition, which Alex had picked up behaviors through punishment or positive reinforcement.
"Humans communicating with animals, animals communicating with humans, and humans learning about how animals learned to communicate with each other-it seemed little short of a miracle to me (Pepperberg, 2008).”
Dr. Irene Pepperberg’s study has inspired many subsequent scientists interested in Animal Language Studies such as Aimee Morgana and her African Grey, N’kisi.
“He is treated as a member of the family. N'kisi was not trained like a performing animal, and does not just mimic or use speech "on cue". Instead, he has been allowed to develop his own creative relationship to language as a means of self-expression. N'kisi speaks in sentences, showing a grasp of grammar in formulating his own original expressions. He is capable of actual conversations. He often initiates comments about what we are doing, feeling, looking at, thinking, etc, which is how we discovered his ability to read minds. N'kisi often demonstrates telepathy in spontaneous situations, and also communicates love, compassion, and a keen sense of humor. Language-using animals are like "animal ambassadors" helping to bridge the worlds of other species with our own. In the wild, parrots live in large flocks with complex social interactions, which have yet to be studied (Morgana 2002).”
In his relatively young 31 years of life, Alex picked up over 100 object labels, had the comprehension skills of a five-year-old human child and the emotional development of the average two-year-old child. When he passed away in 2007, Dr. Pepperberg feels as though he did not reach his full potential. There is still so much that we can learn from the "bird brain". Irene's studies have continued with the other three birds in her mini African Grey flock but none of the birds have achieved their potential, perhaps individual choice, as Alex has had.