wrote in message
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Karen wrote:

On 2007-09-11 09:47:54 -0500, "Kreisleriana" drtmuiratearthlink.net
said:

Alex, the African grey parrot with the astonishing verbal skills, has
died at age 31:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/mas...ns_scientists/

I

just heard about this on the news. That is pretty young for a parrot,
isn't it?

An article I read said that African Greys live to about 50, on average.
Alex worked with this group of researchers for 30 years, but I don't
know how old he was when he started working with them.

I first saw Alex on a TV show, might've been Animal Planet, or
maybe PBS, not sure. It showed Irene Pepperberg asking him to identify
various pieces of plastic that were in different colors and shapes.
She'd say, "Which one is the blue square?" And he'd peck at it (or
maybe pick it up, I don't remember). "Which is the red circle?" etc.
He got them all right. I remember reading an article a while later
that said the remarkable thing about that was that he could keep two
concepts in his mind at the same time: color and shape. Not all
animals can do that.

That was amazing enough, but the thing that impressed me the most
was when he started saying, "Wanna go chair. Wanna go chair." Irene
said, "Oh, you want to go to your chair? OK." She moved him to the
back of "his" chair, and he stopped talking about that. To me that
showed that he was able to express a wish, that originated from
him, using language.

It's one thing when an animal recognizes a sound pattern and
understands the idea or object that sound is associated with. Dogs
and cats can do that, too. But he was able to express his own
thoughts using words. He wasn't just mimicking sounds. He knew
which sounds to use to express an idea that he was having.


The most amazing thing for me was his intraction with Dr. Pepperberg, and
the other parrots. He would sometimes seem to get bored with his lesons,
and it was obvious that he would start messing with her, answering wrong on
purpose. He'd also tell her to "Relax!" when she would insist! Reminded
me of my brother as a teenager, talking to our dad. Also, he would order
the other parrots to "Talk better" when they started underachieving, too. A
truly amazing little bird.

Dr. Pepperberg must be wrecked. That's a really close relationship. They
get purrs from us.