{"id":24976,"date":"2018-09-05T23:32:17","date_gmt":"2018-09-06T04:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/?p=24976"},"modified":"2025-08-18T22:13:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T03:13:19","slug":"inside-dr-pepperbergs-lab-when-parrots-speak-their-mind-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/inside-dr-pepperbergs-lab-when-parrots-speak-their-mind-or-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Dr. Pepperberg’s Lab: When Parrots Speak Their Mind…Or Not"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"African
Courtesy of Dr. Irene Pepperberg<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From previous blogs, you can probably figure out that our youngest bird, Athena, while quite smart, absolutely has a mind of her own. She definitely can use English speech, but only when she wants to do so. Thus, she\u2019ll gladly produce, \u201cYam\u201d in the morning to get the research assistants to feed her before they feed Griffin, and likewise will label some of her other favorite foods when it is in her best interest. Similarly, although she hasn\u2019t quite perfected \u201cShoulder\u201d or \u201cBack\u201d (to the cage), given that those are two of her preferred locations, she works hard to produce something we can understand.<\/p>\n

Athena\u2014So Smart but Soooo Difficult!<\/h3>\n

Athena’s\u00a0modus operandi<\/em>, however, seems to be to say something almost perfectly, assume \u201cBeen there, done that,\u201d and then decide that she doesn\u2019t need to utter it again any time soon. Needless to say, such behavior is not only frustrating to observe, but makes our research quite difficult. We\u2019ve attempted to cope by working on tasks with Athena that involve comprehension rather than production. We are doing several of these at the moment; in each case the task involves a two-choice procedure. We are also doing some of the same tasks with Griffin, so she can initially watch what he is doing and model her behavior on his. (Eventually, when he gets to the testing phase on those tasks, we won\u2019t let her watch so that she\u2019ll have to figure things out on her own.)<\/p>\n

Right now, for example, we are giving her a simple \u201cmatch-to-sample\u201d problem. (Griffin already knows match-to-sample, so his tasks are a bit different and more difficult, but the idea is the same; see picture of him working on bigger-smaller below.) We put her on a T-stand in front of a wooden stool, place two woolen pompons of two different colors on a tray that is resting on the stool, make sure she can see them both, show her a third pompon that is the same color as one of the two existent ones, and ask her to \u201cMatch color-X\u201d (see photo).<\/p>\n

She can attend to either the vocal or the visual cue\u2014for now, it doesn\u2019t matter\u2014we just want her to learn to match on command. If she\u2019s correct, she gets a small treat, like a quarter of a piece of slightly sweetened cereal\u2014something that is not part of her normal diet. If she makes a mistake, the tray is pulled back and shown to a student who is correct and who then gets the treat. In most laboratories, subjects will do a minimum of 20 such trials in one session. Notably, we\u2019ve learned that with both Griffin and Athena, we can\u2019t do more than three or four trials at once. If we do even 10 trials, their approach is just to choose at random and figure that they\u2019ll get enough treats by chance to make them happy without even thinking!<\/p>\n

A Mind Of Her Own<\/h3>\n

Of course, in the other laboratories, the subjects are actually working for at least part of their daily rations, so they are definitely more motivated; our birds work for these special treats instead. Griffin is doing quite well on all his tasks, but Athena is more erratic. Some days she\u2019s almost perfect; other days she acts as though she\u2019s never seen the task before in her life. She seems to be having fun either way\u2014as though she enjoys both getting her treats and watching us get more and more frustrated.<\/p>\n

Recently, she\u2019s taken the \u201cgame\u201d to an entirely different level. She can say some color labels although, again, only when she wants to. So if she has to say \u201cyellow\u201d to get some corn, you can bet that she is going to do so! Her favorite trick now is to watch us show her color-x and say \u201cMatch color-x\u201d\u2014and then she says color-y and grabs at the y-colored pompon! We don\u2019t want to discipline her, because we do<\/em> want to encourage her to label the various colors\u2014and she is being quite clever!<\/p>\n

As her behavior is not very good for the bottom line of our data sheet, we don\u2019t give her a treat, but we do praise her and tell her that, yes, that is<\/em> color-y, but then ask if she can now match color-x. Many times, she is happy simply to have grabbed a pompon and can care less about the treat; other times, she is willing to choose appropriately the second time she\u2019s asked. We are hoping that by watching Griffin she will become more motivated to work appropriately. We\u2019ll see where this all goes, but the bottom line is that we know we have a smart bird\u2014just definitely not one who cares to follow directions!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you are the director of a world-famous animal cognitive behavior research lab, what do you do when your feathered diva doesn\u2019t follow directions? Dr. Irene Pepperberg and her assistants start by having African grey Athena watch her flockmate Griffin perform a requested task with the hope that she\u2019ll be inspired to model his behavior. When that fails, see how Athena has her own way of proving just how smart parrots are. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":24979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,171],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-behavior","category-everyday"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nInside Dr. Pepperberg's Lab: When Parrots Speak Their Mind...Or Not – Pet Birds by Lafeber Co.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you are the director of a world-famous animal cognitive behavior research lab, what do you do when your feathered diva doesn\u2019t follow directions? 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