The Justice

Prof. Irene Pepperberg (PSYC) with Alex, her world famous African Gray parrot. Photo courtesy of Brandeis University Web site

Thirty years ago, Prof. Irene Pepperberg (PSYC) walked into a pet store looking for the most unremarkable bird she could find.

The young man working at the store handed Pepperberg a one-year-old African Grey parrot, whom the young graduate named Alex-an acronym for her Avian Learning Experiment.

On Sept. 6, Pepperberg walked into the psychology research lab to start a new day of work, only to find that the bird who could make sentences-and headlines-had died during the night. He was 31, about middle-aged for an African Grey.

Pepperberg became fascinated with the concept of speech and animals after watching an episode of the science documentary NOVA in the mid-1970s. Soon after, she left her field of theoretical chemistry to prove that avian speech was much more than mindless mimicry.

And prove it she did. Alex took the scientific community by storm with his understanding of names, numbers, colors and the concept of zero.

"I began my research using a modeling technique I adapted from my German colleague Dietmar Todt. My students and I would let Alex play with the things he wanted to play with, such as paper or keys. We would teach him how to label them," Pepperberg says.

"It was a two-person technique. One person is the model for the bird's behavior, a rival for his attention, and the other one trains him."

For example, if Alex was playing with a piece of paper, one researcher would hold it up for the other to name. A correct answer was rewarded, while a wrong answer would result in the paper disappearing from view.

If Alex made a sound that resembled the correct answer, Pepperberg says, he was rewarded for that answer and then steered toward a more correct pronunciation.

Pepperberg originally wanted to do research with African Grey parrots because their speech is known for its clear, humanlike quality. She got more than she bargained for when Alex surprised her with his ability to reason and comprehend concepts of numbers and colors as well.

Alex also had an amazing grasp of the concept of "zero" or "none," which Pepperberg says humans didn't understand or use until the 16th century.

With fondness in her voice, Pepperberg recounts a specific experiment that continues to stick with her. She had prepared a tray with different-colored objects, arranged in groups of two, three or six, and Alex was being tested on his understanding in the differences between the groups.

Continued...

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