Bio-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, February 6, 1993
Research Shows Parrots Think Before They Talk
TUCSON, Ariz. Thousands
of parrots flock together in the
Amazon like a yelling, squawking
jungle stock exchange. The mes
sages in their noisy chatter, a
trademark sound of rain forests
the world over, have remained a
mystery.
But in a University pf Arizona
laboratory in the Sonoran Desert,
a talkative African gray parrot
named Alex may be spilling the
secrets of his wild cousins in Afri
ca, Asia and South America.
The surprise is the apparent in
telligence behind Alex’s speech,
how he processes general infor
mation, say scientists and con
servationists familiar with the
growing data from ethologist
Irene Pepperbcrg’s 15 years of re
search.
“What shape?” she asks, hold
ing up a square piece of yellow pa
per.
Reaching for it with one greedy
talon while clamped with the other
to his perch on the back of a fold
ing metal chair, Alex answers:
“Four-comer.”
From a tray of several toys, he
succeeds in picking out the red
one.
“Wool,” he squawks, indicating
the fuzzy red wool ball. Alex can
correctly identify the color, shape,
and material of hundreds of small
toys.
“Saying something is red or
yellow is an absolute judgment,
but to say something is bigger or
smaller, that’s relative,” Pepper
berg explains. “And for a long
lime, people thought animals
other than chimpanzees couldn’t
do that type of task. Well, we’ve
been able to show a bird can.”
With his nearly 100-word vo
cabulary, Alex has a wide reper
toire of tasks. By answering cate
gorical questions, he tends to
prove he is not just mimicking
or parroting words.
Pepperberg’s research is the
A talkative African grey parrot named Alex may be spili
. Ing secrets In a University of Arizona laboretbry about how
his cousins hi rain forests throughout the world process,
general Information. The apparent intelligence behind
Alex’s speech Indlcates that parrot vocalizations may be
more than just mimicry.
first to show that parrot vocaliza
tions can actually be meaningful
instead of just mimicry, Donald R.
Griffin, an animal-behavior au
thority and professor emeritus at
Rockefeller University in New
York City, tells National Geo
graphic.
Such a discovery could do for
threatened wild birds what it has
done for chimpanzees, dolphins
and whales, suggests Charles
Munn, a research zoologist with
Wildlife Conservation Interna
tional, a division of the New York
Zoological Society.
The intelligence of those spe
cies has helped make them profit
able fund-raising mascots for the
environmental movement. It has
won them legal protection from
overhunting, habitat destruction
and the pet trade.
Peppcrberg says a prime motive
in her research “is to educate the
public that these birds are sentient
beings.”
But are animals with intelli
gence more important than those
without it?
“No,” she says. “But once you
interest people in an animal to
which they can relate, they will
begin to realize that destroying
their habitat will kill them off. It’s
not just the parrot that will be sav
ed when the rain forests are saved
or when the clear-cutting ends in
Africa. All the species involved
will be saved, and that’s really
what’s important.”
But more knowledge about par
rot intelligence can also make the
birds more desirable as pets. The
Wild Bird Conservation Act ol
1992, signed by President Bush in
October, imposed an immediate
moratorium on the import of eighi
species of birds thought to be es
pecially at risk from the pet trade.
Conservation groups estimate
that parrots account for roughly
half of the 500,000 birds imported
legally and illegally into the Unit-
Correctly calling out the color and number of these keys Is easy for this Af lean gray
parrot named Alex. Ethologist Irene Pepperberg of the University of Arizona says she
has taught the bird to Identify the color, shape, and material of hundreds of small toys
and to distinguish between bigtger and smaller sizes.
ed States each year. African gray
parrots are not included in the
moratorium, because they are still
widely found in Africa. They are
classified as threatened, not en
dangered.
Pepperberg explains that her
bird-training technique is based on
“what these birds probably do in
the wild.” She creates.a social at
mosphere in which parrots learn
by watching and hearing their
peers and parents.
Traditional techniques basically
rely on repetition of words until
the bird says the word and is re
warded with a food item that
doesn’t relate to the word’s mean
ing. But Pepperberg teaches Alex
by letting him watch her “teach” a
person who serves as a model.
Pepperberg holds an object and
repeats its name until the model
says it correctly. She then rewards
the model with the object, not
food.
Alex learns as he might from
his parents in the wild. Pepperberg
now uses Alex as the model for
some of the training of two young
er birds.
Recognition of Pepperberg’s
When was the last time you had
a good laugh?
Unfortunately, most of us have
become far too serious, losing
touch with the importance of fun.
Researchers say you will stay
healthier if you laugh 15 to 20
times a day for at least 20 seconds
each time. Humor and laughter are
positive, healthy ways-to deal with
stress and change. But many peo
ple haVe difficulty taking time to
laugh or finding something to
laugh about.
People are not bom with a sense
of humor, but they can develop it
Here are some suggestions to help
you add more laughter to your life;
* Recognize the value of
humor. Don’t worry or analyze
why people laugh just
work has taken time, says Griffin,
because of skepticism among sci
entists long trained in the strict be
havioralist tradition that animals
have no real thoughts or con
sciousness.
Pcpperbcrg prefers to let others
interpret what she has proved
about Alex. Griffin, who has writ
ten textbooks on animal thought,
believes her work docs suggest
what goes on in an animal’s head.
“Here is a case where an ani
mal’s communication tells us he is
leally thinking ... and it’s rather
unlikely he’s the only one,” Grif
fin says. “It’s a sort of opening up
of the whole recognition of mental
versatility of non-human animals.
Insofar as her research is correct,
it changes the whole way we think
about parrots and other animals.”
Pepperberg hopes to reinforce
her findings with two younger
African grays Kyaaro and Alo
that she has been training for a
year in Tucson.
But other scientists are already
incorporating her findings into
their own research. Pepperberg’s
work has helped confirm Munn’s
Laughter Is Healing
participate.
* Adopt a playful attitude. Be
open to silly and outrageous
things.
* Think funny. See the funny
side of every situation.
* Laugh at yourself. Acknow
ledge and accept that'you are not
perfect.
* Laugh with others for what
they do rather than for what they
are.
* Surround yourself with happy
people.
* Take yourself—but not your
belief that these “incredibly noi
sy” animals really are communi
cating ideas.
When thousands of parrots
come together in the wild “like a
stock exchange with a lot of shout
ing and yelling, they’re probably
trying to trade off information
about the resources they use,” he
says.
Munn’s own bird-conservation
research in the Peruvian Amazon
has taught him that “different
shrieks mean different things” to
parrots. For example, he says he
can identify vocalizations used by
the colorful Amazon parrot to sig
nal such things as a U-tum in
flight or a brief flight from one
tree to another.
But Alex’s revelations have
convinced Munn that parrots in
the wild could be communicating
complex information such as sea
sonal variations of fruit and the
navigational problems of finding
that fruit in dense forest.
With a life expectancy of more
than SO years, Alex may yet reveal
much more—and redefine what it
means to be bird-brained.
responsibilities lightly.
* Clip some stories, articles or
cartoons that make you laugh and
keep them in your own “humor
kit.” Use the kit frequently on
yourself and others.
Humor can be a major tool for
gaining insight. It can help you
laugh at some of your own quirks
as well as laugh with others at
their fun-worthy failings.
Laughing may not cure all your
ills, but it can make the bad times
easier to take.