The remarkable life of a feathered friend

Thirty years ago, Prof. Irene Pepperberg (PSYC) walked into a pet store looking for the most unremarkable bird she could find.The young man working at the store handed Pepperberg a one-year-old African Grey parrot, whom the young graduate named Alex-an acronym for her Avian Learning Experiment.

On Sept. 6, Pepperberg walked into the psychology research lab to start a new day of work, only to find that the bird who could make sentences-and headlines-had died during the night. He was 31, about middle-aged for an African Grey.

Pepperberg became fascinated with the concept of speech and animals after watching an episode of the science documentary NOVA in the mid-1970s. Soon after, she left her field of theoretical chemistry to prove that avian speech was much more than mindless mimicry.

And prove it she did. Alex took the scientific community by storm with his understanding of names, numbers, colors and the concept of zero.

"I began my research using a modeling technique I adapted from my German colleague Dietmar Todt. My students and I would let Alex play with the things he wanted to play with, such as paper or keys. We would teach him how to label them," Pepperberg says.

"It was a two-person technique. One person is the model for the bird's behavior, a rival for his attention, and the other one trains him."

For example, if Alex was playing with a piece of paper, one researcher would hold it up for the other to name. A correct answer was rewarded, while a wrong answer would result in the paper disappearing from view.

If Alex made a sound that resembled the correct answer, Pepperberg says, he was rewarded for that answer and then steered toward a more correct pronunciation.

Pepperberg originally wanted to do research with African Grey parrots because their speech is known for its clear, humanlike quality. She got more than she bargained for when Alex surprised her with his ability to reason and comprehend concepts of numbers and colors as well.

Alex also had an amazing grasp of the concept of "zero" or "none," which Pepperberg says humans didn't understand or use until the 16th century.

With fondness in her voice, Pepperberg recounts a specific experiment that continues to stick with her. She had prepared a tray with different-colored objects, arranged in groups of two, three or six, and Alex was being tested on his understanding in the differences between the groups.

"We were working on number comprehension," Pepperberg says. "Alex already understood using the term 'none' for 'absent' or 'size difference.'' Pepperberg and her partners pushed Alex further, asking him questions like "What is six?" to get the bird to describe the color of the objects in the group of six.

The researchers asked Alex, "What color is three?" When he continually answered "five," the team finally finally asked him, "Waht color is five?" Alex answered, "None."

"He not only understood 'absence' of something like an attribute, but that there were no five things on the tray," Pepperberg says.

Other experiments tested Alex's understanding of the differences between larger and smaller objects, the ability to identify pairs, and the ability to count.

"We give him tests that are very similar to those given to children," Pepperberg told the Justice in September 2006.

Pepperberg says that Alex showed the emotional capacity of a two-year-old and the intellectual capacity of a five-year-old.

Neil Dean '09, who worked closely with Alex this summer, wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that "working with him was one of the most awe-inspiring, confusing, and absolutely magnificent experiences I'll ever have.

"He was the only animal I ever encountered-and I think, that ever existed-who could convey and reciprocate emotion better than most humans," he wrote.

On the evening of Sept. 6, says Pepperberg, her routine with Alex was the same as it has been for the past 30 years.

"We put him in the cage last night, and he was fine," she says. "We went through the normal routine, you be good, I love you, see you tomorrow."

According to the vet, he died a few hours later.

The vet who examined Alex told Pepperberg and her colleague that the preliminary autopsy didn't show that anything was "obviously wrong." Further examinations are necessary to determine the precise cause of death.

"The saddest thing about this is that his role can never be filled by anything," Dean wrote.