{"id":26113,"date":"2019-05-15T14:51:21","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T19:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/?p=26113"},"modified":"2025-08-20T19:49:52","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T00:49:52","slug":"pepperbergs-lab-when-parrots-go-off-script","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/pepperbergs-lab-when-parrots-go-off-script\/","title":{"rendered":"Pepperberg’s Lab: When Parrots Go “Off-Script”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"African
Griffin put to the test in Dr. Pepperberg’s lab. Courtesy of Dr. Irene Pepperberg<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019m often asked in interviews if my parrots really know what they are saying. My usual response is to provide solid scientific evidence that they couldn\u2019t answer correctly otherwise. I might describe how I used to show Alex, and now can show Griffin, a particular object, and how each bird would correctly respond to several questions about it\u2014for example, \u201cBlue\u201d to \u201cWhat color?\u201d, \u201cFour-corner\u201d to \u201cWhat shape?\u201d, \u201cWood\u201d to \u201cWhat matter?\u201d and \u201cBlock\u201d to \u201cWhat toy?\u201d<\/p>\n

Or, for Alex, who also knew concepts of same\/different<\/em>, I would relate how I could show him, for example, two keys, one green and one red, and ask, \u201cWhat\u2019s different?\u201d to which he\u2019d reply, \u201cColor\u201d, then \u201cWhat color bigger?\u201d and he\u2019d give the correct color, and finally I could ask \u201cHow many?\u201d and he would state \u201cTwo.\u201d Both birds had to be able to recognize the correspondence between each label and each of the separate questions in order to make each appropriate response, even though all their responses were to the same objects\u2014the objects themselves obviously could not be a simple cue to say one<\/em> particular thing. Sometimes, however, I wish I could have used some anecdotal evidence instead, because the anecdotes, although not very scientific, are a lot more fun to relate.<\/p>\n

When A Parrot\u2019s Use of Words Is Very Clever, But\u2026.<\/h3>\n

One example occurred awhile back when Griffin did not want to climb [get on a human hand] for one of the students. This particular student is terrific; however, he happens to be working on a project that Griffin does not like very much. Thus, whenever the student asks Griffin to \u201cClimb,\u201d Griffin figures that he\u2019s going to be made to work on this difficult task. The other day, the student asked several times, and each time Griffin put his head down, gave the student the famous Grey parrot slitty-eye<\/em>\u2019 look, and refused with his squeaky \u201cNuh.\u201d The student persisted. Finally, Griffin walked to the other side of his cage, looked directly at a different<\/em> student, put his foot up, and very, very clearly said \u201cCome here!\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there was the time that Alex kept stating \u201cWant grape,\u201d but then also kept refusing the lovely green one that the student was offering. Finally, he gave her a look that could only be interpreted as frustrated, and belted out \u201curp-ul\u201d\u2026the utterance that, at the time, he was using for the label purple. <\/em>She got the message, and I had to go to the grocery store the next morning for the appropriate item.<\/p>\n

Another time, Alex stated \u201cWant corn,\u201d and this time the student wanted him<\/em> to give the color. She kept asking \u201cWhat color?\u201d and he kept stating, over and over, \u201cWant corn!\u201d Finally, he looked her right in the eye and told her \u201cI\u2019m gonna go away\u201d\u2026 and turned around and walked to the back top of his cage! That particular incident was caught on tape, as the BBC was filming the whole interaction.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Courtesy of Dr. Irene Pepperberg<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Recently, Griffin very deliberately<\/em> misunderstood a student. The student was working on a task in which Griffin had to respond with the color of either the bigger or smaller of two cups, depending on the question the student posed. The answer in this case was “Rose,” and Griffin mumbled it pretty badly. He, however, figured he was correct, and immediately said \u201cWanna nut\u201d\u00a0 to get his reward. The student wasn\u2019t going to let him get away with a mumbled answer, so she said \u201cYou\u2019re right, but talk clearly\u2026say better.” To which Griffin replied \u201cWant.a.nut!\u201d with perfect diction! It was quite difficult not to reward this behavior with a laugh.<\/p>\n

Clearly, the anecdotes represent single incidents, incidents that we can\u2019t reproduce in order to get statistical significance\u2014the gold standard of any scientific research. I can\u2019t present these anecdotes in a scientific report or a conference presentation; my colleagues would\u2014rightfully\u2014argue that these instances could have happened by chance, given all the hours of interactions between humans and birds in my laboratory. I believe, however, that these anecdotes provide interesting insights into how the mind of a parrot may work. And, sometimes, anecdotes can inspire the design of our scientific studies, as when we decided to study addition after Alex gave some evidence that he was summing the number of clicks that we were using to train Griffin on numerical concepts (see Pepperberg, 2006).<\/p>\n

Pepperberg, I.M. (2006a) Grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus<\/em>) numerical abilities: addition and further experiments on a zero-like concept. Journal of Comparative Psychology<\/em>, 120<\/em>, 1\u201311.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Pepperberg\u2019s work with parrots revolves around reproducing behaviors using scientific methods to attain statistical significance. Of course, parrots being parrots, there are plenty of incidents where one of her African greys says or does something that perfectly captures their mood or preference, but which cannot be scientifically documented. African grey Griffin, like Alex before him, certainly knows how to get his point across to Pepperberg and her research students. See how these anecdotes provide interesting insights into how the mind of a parrot may work. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":26114,"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":[81,211,171,169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-behavior","category-editor-choice","category-everyday","category-new"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPepperberg's Lab: When Parrots Go "Off-Script" – Pet Birds by Lafeber Co.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dr. Pepperberg\u2019s work with parrots revolves around reproducing behaviors using scientific methods to attain statistical significance. 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