{"id":34804,"date":"2022-03-16T12:59:06","date_gmt":"2022-03-16T17:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/?p=34804"},"modified":"2025-09-29T21:41:58","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T02:41:58","slug":"inside-dr-pepperbergs-lab-alexs-communication-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/inside-dr-pepperbergs-lab-alexs-communication-skills\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Dr. Pepperberg’s Lab: Alex\u2019s Communication Skills"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"African
Alex would sometimes ask new student volunteers to bring him toy after toy, seemingly to test their knowledge of what items were called what. Courtesy of Dr. Irene Pepperberg<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

All my parrots use the sounds of English speech to communicate with me and with the students in the lab, but none to the extent that made Alex so special. Much of that had to do with Alex being an “only bird” for the first 15 years of his life. But he had a small army of humans who spent about 10 hours\/day vocally interacting with him on a one-to-one or two-to-one basis.<\/p>\n

Some of that had to do with the different training our subsequent birds experienced. For example, we tested several alternative procedures with Griffin, none of which were nearly as effective as the M\/R technique<\/a> that was Alex\u2019s only training; thus Griffin had much less useful input during his early life, and that likely affected how much he was willing to learn later.<\/p>\n

During Athena\u2019s early training, we could never arrange to give her long periods with only human interaction so that she would want to learn more speech than parrot squawks. (As I\u2019ve noted before, she can<\/em> talk very well but simply doesn\u2019t often care to do so!) Although I don\u2019t think Alex was particularly gifted, he did interact with us to an extraordinary extent, and his skills can best be appreciated by describing several of his vocal activities.<\/p>\n

Alex The Vocabulary Teacher<\/h3>\n
Vocabulary Lesson For Students<\/h5>\n

Alex engaged in a particular behavior pattern exclusively with new students. They probably thought he was hazing them, but his actions likely had an origin in nature. Each time a new student came into the lab, Alex asked for everything in his repertoire \u2014 all of his toys, all of his foods, things of various colors and shapes. It was a constant barrage of \u201cWant X!\u201d These actions would not have been quite so annoying had he actually wanted<\/em> any of these things. What he did was beak them for a moment and then almost immediately toss them to the ground, only to then shout out \u201cWant Y!\u201d<\/p>\n

To keep the students engaged, I had to explain what I thought was the real reason for Alex\u2019s actions: that he wanted to make sure that he and they shared the same repertoire so that they could become part of his flock. Very likely something like that happens in the wild when a new bird tries to join an existent group. All the birds need to be able to communicate fully with one another, so they likely test out their understanding of each other\u2019s utterances. The incoming bird can then learn new vocalizations if necessary.<\/p>\n

A Vocabulary Lesson For Me<\/h5>\n

Sometimes Alex acted as though he expected me to figure out what he meant even if he wasn\u2019t initially making his message clear. I\u2019ll never forget a particular instance that involved one of his favorite foods, grapes. At the time, we were at Purdue University, and finding fresh, beautiful grapes in Indiana in the middle of winter in the late 1970s was a challenge. I was thrilled when I was able to obtain some particularly lovely green ones at the local grocery store. I couldn\u2019t wait to be able to respond to Alex\u2019s \u201cWant grape!\u201d with something other than \u201cSorry, not today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus I was quite surprised when I handed one over and he promptly tossed it in my face, and then repeated \u201cWant grape!\u201d He tossed the next one back as well. I ate it, telling him it was \u201cYummy!\u201d I thought that maybe it had been so long since he had had grapes that he didn\u2019t recognize it. We went through the interaction once more. Finally, he looked at me, ruffled his feathers, and said, \u201cWant grape \u2026 URP-LE!\u201d (for some reason, he had trouble with the initial \/p\/ in \u201cpurple\u201d). Point taken. Green grapes just weren\u2019t acceptable, no matter how big and juicy.<\/p>\n

Griffin Bullied By Alex<\/h5>\n

He also used his speech to bully Griffin. We would ask Griffin to identify the color of an item, and Griffin would softly say something like \u201cgree\u2026\u201d From the next cage, Alex would shout out, \u201cTalk clearly! Say better! GREEEEEN!\u201d Griffin would scrunch down, look sheepish, and stop talking. Or Alex would look at Griffin and say, \u201cNo! Tell me what shape?\u201d Griffin would look at me, look at Alex, literally shrug his little birdie shoulders as if to say, \u201cTo whom should I respond?\u201dAgain, he went quiet. Poor Griffin.<\/p>\n

Alex The Eager Learner<\/h3>\n

As I mentioned in last month\u2019s blog, Alex\u00a0 also asked questions in order to learn new labels for objects, colors, shapes, and foods. I never thought too much about that behavior, until a colleague studying nonhuman behavior pointed out that the apes in animal-human communication studies never did so. Some of them, like Alex, would address the problem of dealing with an item they couldn\u2019t name by devising new labels from existing ones (e.g., Washoe called a radish \u201ccry-hurt-food\u201d and produced \u201cwater-bird\u201d for a swan; Alex devised \u201cyummy bread\u201d for cake, \u201cbanerry\u201d for apple, \u201ccork nut\u201d for almond, etc.).<\/p>\n

The apes also always routinely responded to questions, but evidence of their actually asking questions isn\u2019t documented. Alex, however, learned \u201ccarrot\u201d by asking us what we were eating, learned \u201corange\u201d by asking about the color of the carrot, learned \u201cgray\u201d by seeing himself in a mirror and asking, \u201cWhat color?\u201d and the labels of several other items through repeatedly questioning his trainers. Unlike the apes, he thus understood that he could use his existent phrases as a tool<\/em> to learn more labels. Sadly, neither Griffin nor Athena seem to have acquired this skill.<\/p>\n

Alex The Trickster<\/h3>\n

Another incident occurred when I was taping a radio program for a media outlet. Given that it was radio, it seemed weird to be asking Alex about objects that the audience couldn\u2019t see, but, hey, if that\u2019s what the outlet wanted. I picked up a toy (I seem to remember it being an orange, wooden triangle) and asked Alex, \u201cWhat color?\u201d He asked me, \u201cWhat shape?\u201d I told him, and repeated my query. He asked, \u201cWhat matter?\u201d I told him, and repeated my query. He then asked, \u201cHow many?\u201d I told him there was one<\/em> toy and repeated my query. He again asked me, \u201cWhat shape?\u201d<\/p>\n

At that point, I lost my patience and figured that the audience would think he was just randomly spouting phrases. Not good. I told him something like, \u201cEnough! I\u2019m going to go away.\u201d I turned my back and began to walk out of the room. The producer tracked the sounds of my heels clicking \u2026 and then came a little parrot voice,\u201cI\u2019m sorry\u2026orange!\u201d I don\u2019t know if Alex had intentionally wanted to express his dismay about being asked to identify an old, boring item yet one more time, but he couldn\u2019t have done a better job of it.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, I wish that Griffin and Athena were equally chatty, but they both demonstrate their intelligence in many other ways. Griffin in particular has exhibited levels of cognitive processing that continue to surprise my colleagues and surpass some of what Alex had shown. And, of course, given that African grey parrots are open-ended vocal learners, I haven\u2019t given up on either of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In her latest Lafeber blog, Dr. Irene Pepperberg shares Alex the African grey\u2019s impressive grasp of words and his eagerness to expand his vocabulary. Learn more about Alex\u2019s passion for learning, how his time in the lab differed from that of greys Griffin and Athena, and how he was very particular about his grapes! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":27059,"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-34804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-behavior","category-everyday"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nInside Dr. Pepperberg's Lab: Alex\u2019s Communication Skills – Pet Birds by Lafeber Co.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In her latest Lafeber blog, Dr. Irene Pepperberg shares Alex the African grey\u2019s impressive grasp of words and his eagerness to expand his vocabulary. 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