As an anthropologist, I’ve watched the line between humans and other animals become blurrier over time. At one point, only humans were believed to have the ability to make tools, then Jane Goodall documented chimpanzee tool use in the wild. Next, only humans have culture, but chimp troops have their own learned behaviors that are transmitted across generations, also, including different tool-making traditions. And the big one, only humans communicate with language, and language is required for higher cognitive function.
And while lots of work has been done with higher primates, Koko and Washoe being notable examples, very little research has been done on language capacity and cognitive function with other members of the animal kingdom. That’s where Alex comes in. An African Grey Parrot purchased at a local pet shop by a scientist with an advanced degree in chemistry and a lifelong interest in our avian bretheren and their ability to mimic human speech, Alex was an emissary. During his 30 year collaboration with Dr. Pepperberg, Alex did much to knock humans off their undeservedly lofty perch.
A non-primate, nonmammal creature with a walnut-sized brain could learn elements of communication at least as well as chimps. This new channel of communication opened a window onto Alex’s mind, revealing to me and to all of us the sophisticated [nature of Alex's] information processing [ability].
Dr. Pepperberg also chronicles her journey as a scientist, from her undergraduate days at MIT, to the struggle to find funding for her parrot project (The Alex Foundation helped fill the gaps when grants went unfunded), to jealousy from colleagues when the media picked up on her research, to her return to MIT’s Media Lab with Alex in tow. While the book is disjointed in places, somewhat short (30 years of research is difficult to compress into 227 pages), and occasionally a little dry (Marley & Me was frankly a better read), the importance of her research to the field of animal cognition makes it worthwhile.
As as scientist who’d like to know more about her research, I think I’ll pick up The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots
next.
