Parrot Talk More Clever Than Thought

Jan. 17, 2007 — There may be more to parrot talk than simple mimicry, suggests the behavior of one precocious bird.

For the first time, a grey parrot has demonstrated that he can imitate what he sees and hears — demonstrating a more complex understanding of his environment than that needed for mimicry — according to a study in the current issue of Language Sciences.

The bird, Alex, can also create new word labels for objects by combining words he already knows. For example, he called a juicy red apple that appear to have brought to mind bananas and cherries a "banerry."

Whether parrots imitate or mimic is hotly debated among psychologists and animal behaviorists. It's an important question because to imitate, the individual must have an understanding of its own behavior based on detailed re-evaluation, whereas mimicry is generally defined as mindless repetition.

For the ongoing study, 27-year-old Alex, and companion three-and-a-half-year-old Arthur, were trained with two human speakers to comprehend and label objects, colors, shapes and quantities. Alex now knows over 100 terms, so he can ask for his favorite foods and toys.

One such toy is a thread spool. Lacking lips, Alex had trouble with the "p," so he instead combined a sound and word he already knew: "s" and "wool." He seemed to know that something was missing, so his first attempts at "spool" came out as "s (short pause) wool."

"He created 's (pause) wool' on his own," said Irene Pepperberg, author of the study. "We did not give him any training on anything other than the target (word and object) 'spool.'"

Pepperberg, a parrot expert who is now a lecturer at Harvard and an adjunct associate professor at Brandeis University, told Discovery News that Alex is also having trouble with the "v" in "seven."

"Try saying that without lips!" Pepperberg said. "So he's using 's (pause) one' or 's-none.'"

Children add similar pauses when they are first learning how to read.

Pepperberg explained that recombination of units — meaning words and sounds — represents a novel act that involves cognitive processing, so Alex is imitating, and not mimicking. Pepperberg also believes Alex has an awareness of speech sounds and the ability to segment words, skills once attributed only to people.

Thomas Zentall, professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky, also studies imitation in animals, only his focus is on gestures instead of vocalizations.

Zentall told Discovery News that Pepperberg's study is "novel" and describes "a very clever finding."

He added, "The question now is what to label it?"

Zentall is not yet convinced that any kind of animal vocalization can demonstrate true imitation, since he said the individual might match and remember the stimulus "like a person mimicking the pronunciation of a word in a foreign language."

He has, however, found that pigeons and Japanese quail can imitate movements, such as copying another bird stepping or pecking on a small platform to obtain food.

"In these instances, the bird sees the behavior, but must then translate the movement into its own behavior, which isn't simple mimicry since its beak and body shape may be different," Zentall explained.

Avian students Alex and Arthur are continuing their English speech studies and, according to Pepperberg, recently demonstrated that they understand number symbols, colors and quantities.