Alex (parrot)
Alex is an African grey parrot, whose use of language has been studied intensively over the last 20 years by animal psychologist Irene Pepperberg. Alex has a vocabulary of around 100 words, but is exceptional in that he appears to have understanding of what he says.
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 "bigger," "smaller," "same" and "different," and that he was learning the concepts of "over" and "under." (New York Times, 19 Oct 1999)
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