To find the Parrot Lab, I walk downstairs into the basement of the Foster Biomedical Labs to room 208. I notice the hall smells vaguely like a zoo as I enter the office of Prof. Irene Pepperberg (PSYC). Inside the small room, Pepperberg sits with a student, Stephanie Sapowicz '10, and two African gray parrots, Griffin and Arthur.It is hard to imagine that this room was until very recently home to perhaps the most famous parrot in the world, Alex. Before he died on Sept. 6, 2007, Alex represented a new level of avian intelligence. According to the Alex Foundation Web site, which is dedicated to supporting parrot research, Alex possessed more than 100 vocal labels for different objects, actions, and colors and could identify objects by their material. He could also count object sets containing up to six items and was working on sets of seven and eight.

His intelligence was a source of wonder internationally, and he shined the spotlight directly on Pepperberg and her work studying animals' intelligence through their abilities to understand and communicate. His empty cage still sits in the corner of the room. Just because Alex has passed away, however, does not mean activity has ceased in this small room that serves as a place for Pepperberg to house parrots and perform research.

As I walk into the room, I see two cages, but their presence seems only perfunctory since both parrots move as freely as they please. Griffin, 14, sits outside his cage on a perch, hardly moving as his eyes either scan the room or threaten to close. Pepperberg says that he has been in a "mood" today, either grumpy or sleepy. The other parrot, Arthur, 10, (a.k.a. Wart, a nickname from the Sword in the Stone), is the picture of lively activity. He alternately swings in and out of his open cage, playing with the toys that hang from the side. When Arthur gets bored, he uses a short, disconcerting call that sounds like the word "spool" to demand his favorite spool toy.

Today, Sapowicz joins Pepperberg in the lab. Sapowicz is a Biology major and is on the preveterinary track. She says that she is very interested in animal behavior, so she came to work with these parrots, who represent the forefront of research into animal behavior and intelligence.

As both Sapowicz and Pepperberg explain, the role of behavior in the lives of animals and their interactions with veterinarians and other professionals was not thoroughly studied until very recently, and has now become a small specialization within the veterinary field.

Still, behavior problems account for a great percentage of the birds who are rejected as pets or sent to shelters. Pepperberg said that it is very important for veterinarians to have a kind of "double-edged" understanding of these birds, both behaviorally and physically.

Pepperberg explains that the parrots are very social creatures; in the wild, they would be flock birds, living with up to 100 other animals. When we remove them from that flock, she says, we must provide them with companionship and a sense of family in order to truly nurture them. She says that we cannot keep birds locked in cages for eight hours a day and expect them to thrive; we must give them the freedom to interact and explore.

It is clear that there is a hierarchy and a competition for attention between the birds in the lab. Pepperberg explains that unlike Griffin and Arthur, Alex was a single bird for many years and was often treated like a human toddler, which encouraged his development. When Griffin and Arthur came along, however, Alex interrupted the other parrots' learning sessions many times. Because of this, Pepperberg is questioning whether to fill Alex's place with another parrot due to her fears that Griffin and Arthur would inhibit the new bird's development.

Most people have seen movies in which a parrot sits on a pirates's shoulder and utters short bursts of language, but the work that Pepperberg is doing in this lab only begins with language. She explains, "Their communicative skills never get much beyond a two-year-[old's], but their intelligence on the tests we've given them, is at a five-year-old's [level]."

She says that Griffin, the more advanced of the two birds, is currently being trained to identify colors and shapes and speak not in language or common phrases but in English Speech Sounds, which are the sounds we make when we speak. According to Pepperberg, Griffin also participates in optical illusion studies meant to help researchers understand "how [birds] view the world." Through presenting Griffin with a number of different optical illusions, Pepperberg discovered that he views them in very much the same ways that humans do. She can ascertain this through Griffin's ability to communicate in terms of the shapes and colors that he already knows.

When asked what lessons studying these parrots could teach humans, Pepperberg said, "It shows us how another organism processes information. We look at the world in a particular way with our vision, [and] we don't know how other creatures process this information. [Figuring this out] is important in terms of figuring out how our visual system works."

These parrots are also used as models for intervention systems that help treat and manage disabilities, says Pepperberg. Some of the training that has been done with these birds has been adapted for children with autism; people are more sympathetic when they see how intelligent and bright these creatures are who may be on the same mental and communicative levels as some people with more extreme autism.

As Arthur swung around in his cage and Griffin stood lazily on his perch, at times they seemed more like human children than parrots. When I look at Griffin's eyes slowly scanning the room, it seems as though perhaps, in the minds of the parrots, we are not necessarily the ones in charge. It is a very strange yet thrilling experience to be in such close proximity to an animal that, at least on some level, can think like you and notice the same things as you.