Bird Brains: Are Parrots Smarter than a Human Two-Year Old?

November 20, 2008

That might be stretching things but, as an expert on animal cognition discusses, certain birds display startling abilities and intelligence.

Irene Pepperberg is associate research professor at Brandeis University and the author of a new book, Alex and Me. She and Jonah Lehrer, the editor of Mind Matters, discuss what Alex and other African Grey Parrots can teach us about the evolution of intelligence and the concept of zero.

LEHRER: What first got you interesting in study avian intelligence? After all, to say someone has a "bird brain" is insulting.

PEPPERBERG: I had parakeets as pets as a child, and I knew they were quite smart. For instance, they could learn to say words and phrases in context. But I didn’t connect that to science at the time. I trained in chemistry at MIT and chemical physics at Harvard, not even knowing that a new field, animal cognition, was developing in psychology. It wasn’t until I saw the first NOVA programs, in 1974, on ape signing, dolphin intelligence and the one on "Why Do Birds Sing?" that I realized that one could look at animal-human communication and animal intelligence in a scientific way. That’s when I realized that no one was looking at parrots, which could actually talk. I decided to use their ability to produce human speech sounds to examine their cognitive processes.

Irene Pepperberg of Brandeis University

More of the story,
click image

Posted in Science and Technology