Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id BAA21791 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 6 Sep 2000 01:09:53 +0100 Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000905183642.0291fae0@popmail.mcs.net> X-Sender: aaron@popmail.mcs.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.1 Date: Tue, 05 Sep 2000 19:06:47 -0500 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net> Subject: RE: The Alex Studies : Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots In-Reply-To: <1243931187-11688095@smtp.clarityconnect.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
At 06:01 PM 9/5/00 -0400, Raymond Recchia wrote:
>At 11:47 AM 09/05/00 +0100, you wrote:
> >Sounds like an interesting book.
> >
> >I recently saw a children's nature programme on which they had parrots
> >performing various different exercises. The key to the demonstration was
> >that each of the parrots had learnt how to do things in different ways (for
> >example getting to a pot of food hanging from a long rope- one pulled the
> >pot up to them by pulling the rope and holding it under a foot, another
> >climbed down the rope to the pot). The fact that the parrots were capable
> >of problem-solving in a variety of ways, and this of course is highly
> >adaptive behaviour, is a good sign of intelligence.
> >
> >What would be interesting, from a memetics point of view, would be if
> >parrots were capable of imitating each other's strategies. Perhaps that
> >book you're talking about may cover that topic. From the TV show I saw, the
> >parrots performed their different strategies in plain sight of each other
> >without changing their strategies- although interestingly they did appear to
> >be different species of parrot (one was the blue backed yellow chest kind,
> >the other was the mainly red kind- as you can tell I'm an expert on parrot
> >species :-)!).
>
>I think even Blackmore's book (or maybe it was just this discussion list)
>discusses how certain elements of bird song are cultural. Birds raised in
>isolation will learn a song but if raised around other birds will mimic
>their songs instead. There are regional differences in bird songs that
>appear to be memetic in nature. Bird song is a very limited sphere of
>memetic transfer and it would be valuable to learn if animals have other
>memetic behaviors. Pepperberg's work and your example from TV suggest that
>this may be the case
>
>The example you are describing from the TV show reminds me of the way
>Pepperberg taught her bird. She used a Rival/Model method where a question
>would be asked from human to another who would receive a reward for a
>correct answer. The parrot would witness the correct response and imitate it
>to get the same reward. Pepperberg used this method because the parrot
>learned better this way as opposed to a straight teacher/student system.
>This certainly suggests that parrots learn by imitation in the wild.
>
>I am very interested in the abstract characterization the parrot seems
>capable of. Certain people on this list have argued that a certain level of
>abstraction is necessary for language and that only humans and a few related
>primates are capable of this. I also have found myself been somewhat
>enamored of a theory that suggests that language is necessary for abstract
>thinking. Pepperberg's work suggests that abstraction is a very fundamental
>process that can be learned by all sorts of animals.
>
> >
> >I read in New Scientist a while ago that the researcher you're talking about
> >was considering the notion of giving the parrot access to a kind of
> >'internet' to elleviate the boredom of the lab!
>
>Yes. I had never heard of her before but I guess she is quite well known and
>has even had national TV coverage.
Pepperberg has numerous journal articles on her study of parrots going back
over the past 20 years, and is one of the contributors to the forthcoming
book _The Evolution of Intelligence_, edited by Robert Sternberg and James
Kaufman. It will be interesting to see how she treats the evolution of
parrot intelligence in the latter work.
--Aaron Lynch
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