Grey versus human development - Anthropomorphism

[danmcq]

The comparison of Grey to human abilities is a common comparison we all use on this forum. This is called anthropomorphism. The very definition of it is an interpretation of what is not human or personal in terms of human or personal characteristics.

 

In the parrot world, specifically greys over decades thanks mainly to Dr. Irene Pepperberg and her scientific study of Alex in controlled settings. She proved beyond a doubt greys are intelligent, have language and cognitive capabilities comparable in some ways paralleling human child abilities between the age of 2 to 6 years old. Those cognitive abilities of course are not ALL aspects of a 6 year old childs, they are just comparable in limited aspects of cognitive abilities in some very limited and confined specific areas. There is still a lot to be studied here, but unfortunately with the death of Alex at age 35, that study was cut short.

 

With this said, I would like to hear others thoughts on the cognitive abilities members here believe their greys have, but also why you would compare to a certain age of human child. Physical growth rate and sexual maturity of course have no comparison or meaning when we are speaking of intelligence and cognitive mental abilities.

 

I'll start by positing a few statements of my own.

 

1) There is still very little proven scientific data and study.

 

2) An African grey does not compare at all to the vast human language abilities of a 5 or 6 year old human. They do however use a limited vocabulary in correct terms equal to a human of this age.

 

3) The cognitive abilities in terms of math, texture, shapes etc. are close to a 5 year old human in limited areas and of course humans themselves of this age vary greatly in intelligence as some are almost rocket scientists by then and others are very slow in many of the mentioned areas.

 

4) There is not enough scientific evidence for any of us to take a stand stating that a grey has the same cognitive abilities as x age human. There are just too many variables and really, why do we try to do so? There are just similarities that has been proven by Dr. Pepperberg that without a doubt these greys are intelligent and cognitive sentient beings that are self aware.

 

5) None of us are experts on this including myself. I personally am still learning and will never cease to do so.

Edited July 29, 2012 by danmcq

[Ray P]

Great thread Dan.

I think the comparison between human and grey is very often over used and its not always fair to the grey.

Some times new grey owners will have expectations of their grey that go beyond reality and each grey is different.

We can measure IQ in a child, but not in grey.

We have a long long way to go before we understand whats going on in that little head.

[Wingy]

I am not sure how far the similarities go between children and parrots, our Greys in particular, but what I do know is that I apply some of the things and techniques I learned as a parent into being a caregiver/paront/nurturer/teacher to Jake. Two of the biggest things I learned as a parent is first to put your expectations of others on a shelf and forget about them and second cheer each success on its own merit. IMHO if your constantly looking at the big picture you miss all the good bits in the middle and those bits are what make life so very sweet.

[Jayd]

Thank you Dan, I know how close this subject is to you. I've sat back and watched Dan pursue his interest in this subject, the research he's done, the questions he's asked, he truly has become a expert on this subject. I'm in total agreement with Dan in this area, when he speaks he speaks for me also. Dan, thank you. Jay

 

Please make this a sticky...

[Spock]

We can't afford to lose this information, please stick this.....Maggie

[danmcq]

Thanks Jay and Maggie. I will leave the decision on whether or not to make it a sticky to Janet since this is her room.

[danmcq]

Wingy - That is exactly how Dayo has been taught since we stated visiting him at the breeders at 6 weeks of age. Every action and item is named when we do or offer something. Greys learn just like every other creature, from seeing and hearing. The key thing with greys, is they can learn our language , speak and combine that with the cognitive abilities to communicate with us over time.

Edited July 30, 2012 by danmcq

[Sarasota]

The good news is, the studies continue with Griffen and Wart: http://www.alexfoundation.org/index2.htm

 

I find that it's extremely difficult to separate logic from anthropomorphism when dealing with the birds that live in our home (or any animal). When I am speaking loosely on a message board I'll use words like "angry," "sulking," "happy." But constructs can be dangerous. Once a bird is labled aggressive, hormonal, etc. we look away from what the bird is actually doing, i.e. eye pinning, body posture, wing flapping.

 

That said, I've seen levels of cognitive ability in my birds. I don't mean the "good timing" stuff like laughing at a joke, or saying hello to someone passing the cage. My younger Grey, Sondhi has invented a work that sound like "Shooooo!" It's not a real word, or something I that I say around the house. But it's his word for "I'm about to fly." And it's consistent with launching off a perch into flight. A word he created concurrent with an act...pretty good!

 

And here's an example of what can *look* like cognitive ability, but it's just a lot of training. I have a colored ring game I use with my bird Burt. First he learned to hold the ring, then put it on a post, finally to put the ring on the correct colored post. It took many sessions and tons of trial and error, but he does it perfectly now. There's no way to test whether there was a light bulb moment where he recognized it was a color thing....or whether he got more treats putting a ring on a certain peg. I can't get it in his brain, but my guess is that he did it for the sunflower seeds.

 

I'm not certain yet if they are self aware when looking in a mirror (I've been meaning to try the colored sticker test...need to get on that). As far as my toucans go, nothing. My female constantly attacks her own image in the mirror.

[danmcq]

GreYt post Sarasota! I keep following any and all news in regards Dr . Pepperberg, Griffen and Wart. I think it is hard for all of us to separate logic from anthropomorphism as well because it is so human. But, logic was here long before humans entered the plane of existence. Just logic around at all the physic's and order of things. As my friend Spock always said "Live long and prosper". :)I do know Dayo is self aware. He recognizes himself, me and my wife as well as the dogs in mirrors in various places throughout the house.

Edited July 30, 2012 by danmcq

[Sarasota]

He recognizes himself, me and my wife as well as the dogs....

 

I'm glad you mentioned that! Food for thought. Sondheim will talk to the dogs, but it's generally understandable. When I call the dogs outside he calls, "Come on, Howard! Pottie! Let's go!" and that's parroting (sorry) what I say. BUT, there is an absolute connection that the big, black hairy thing too close to his cage is "Richard! Uhh uhhh uhhh."

 

There's one other thing (my mind is on a roll now): Once or twice, the smoke alarm has gone off in the middle of the night. I jump out of bed in a panic, realize it's just a battery going bad, and go back to sleep. But there is a true sense of emergency. Burt has started using the sound of the smoke alarm as his own "danger" call - like when he sees a cat or someone he doesn't know comes close to his cage.

[Jayd]

Thank you for this Sticky.............

[danmcq]

Burt is certainly cognitive in terms of using the smoke alarm sound to indicate danger.

 

One question, when you use the term parroting when you are calling the dogs. You don't believe Burt is using his cognitive skills to help you call them? The reason I ask, is because at dog feeding time, I will many times ask Dayo to call Chloe because she in the back bedroom and he will call her with a loud set of whistles and then yell "Chloe, come on Chloe!!!" for me which brings her running. It believe this is cognition, not just parroting. At leadt thats my opinion of it. When Dayo is just sitting and going over lists of phrases etc while daydreaming, I call that parroting.

[CLB]

I ask...would it not be cognitive when Shadow asks, "what are you doing out there" when my husband enters the kitchen having been in the garage?

[Sarasota]

One question, when you use the term parroting when you are calling the dogs. You don't believe Burt is using his cognitive skills to help you call them? The reason I ask, is because at dog feeding time, I will many times ask Dayo to call Chloe because she in the back bedroom and he will call her with a loud set of whistles and then yell "Chloe, come on Chloe!!!" for me which brings her running. It believe this is cognition, not just parroting. At leadt thats my opinion of it. When Dayo is just sitting and going over lists of phrases etc while daydreaming, I call that parroting.

 

It's a good question, and a complicated one. The answer is yes AND no.

 

I use a specific whistle to call my pigeons in from flying. When the parrots are in the aviary and I walk near the loft, they will sometimes let out the whistle. Now, they rarely actually *see* me calling in the birds, just whistling for them. With the dogs if I call out "Howard! Come on, let's go!" the birds might answer "Outside! Come on!" I can't tell you if they are just echoing what they normally hear, or there is comphrehension.

 

This is more along the lines of comphrehension - I have some construction going on at my house. The workers were new to the birds, never seen them before. After a day or two and they were comfortable, the birds starting asking the workers entering the bathroom "You wanna go pottie??" I'm sure I've have said to the birds "Hang, on I'm going pottie" (oh geez! I must look like a crazy bird woman!!!) or "Let's go pottie!" to the dogs. But the birds pulled the concepts together and knew what the workers were doing.

[danmcq]

I ask...would it not be cognitive when Shadow asks, "what are you doing out there" when my husband enters the kitchen having been in the garage?

 

It certainly does show cognition!

[danmcq]

Sarasota - Isn't comprehension and a display of cognizance almost the same? One cannot exist without the other, in my opinion.

 

LOL at going to pottie.There is no doubt your birds do indeed comprehend the meaning of it and used it in real-time asking the workers a perfectly valid question. For all your birds knew they could have been going in there to take a shower or bath.

[kins2321@yahoo.com]

Great reponses! Now when Ollie escapes into the bird room, he see's plastic under their cages. ( he has a pee-pee pad in kitchen.) He thinks he can pee there. Sophie always tells him and zoey to go out and pee in the morning. ( just repeating). If he pee's on her plastic, she gets very mad... say's " NO! NO Ollie! Outside! She does NOT want him peeing on her plastic. Nancy

[Sarasota]

Isn't comprehension and a display of cognizance almost the same?

 

Again, great question. I'm not sure I know the answer. Training can be so subtle that it appears to be learning or cognition. Even respondent learning can be trained as Pavlov showed with his dogs. It's extremely hard to separate the two.

 

There's a great description of this in Alex and Me. Alex loved almonds. Almond isn't that easy for a parrot to say. For some reason, Alex associated almonds in the shell with corks. So, of his own volition, he named almonds "corknuts." Amazing!

 

Alex was worked with constantly, with several different handlers. He was able to express what he wanted - "Wanna go back," "want some pizza" etc. I can't help but wonder if our own birds are frustrated by our limited ability to read their signals and body language, and thwarted by their inability to use full human language with us to communicate!

[Sarasota]

Great reponses! Now when Ollie escapes into the bird room, he see's plastic under their cages. ( he has a pee-pee pad in kitchen.) He thinks he can pee there. Sophie always tells him and zoey to go out and pee in the morning. ( just repeating). If he pee's on her plastic, she gets very mad... say's " NO! NO Ollie! Outside! She does NOT want him peeing on her plastic. Nancy

 

This is hysterical!!!! Birds really are concerned about pottie!

[kins2321@yahoo.com]

The difference between parroting and learning. DON'T... pee on Sophie's plastic. She doesn't like it! She is not repeating. She feels quite strongly about this. LOL! Nancy

[Wingy]

Again, great question. I'm not sure I know the answer. Training can be so subtle that it appears to be learning or cognition. Even respondent learning can be trained as Pavlov showed with his dogs. It's extremely hard to separate the two.

 

There's a great description of this in Alex and Me. Alex loved almonds. Almond isn't that easy for a parrot to say. For some reason, Alex associated almonds in the shell with corks. So, of his own volition, he named almonds "corknuts." Amazing!

 

Alex was worked with constantly, with several different handlers. He was able to express what he wanted - "Wanna go back," "want some pizza" etc. I can't help but wonder if our own birds are frustrated by our limited ability to read their signals and body language, and thwarted by their inability to use full human language with us to communicate!

This is exactly what I have wondered about myself.

 

If you put me in a room with 6 non English speaking intelligent adults, with the task of getting the non English speakers to understand that I was hungry and thirsty we would have difficulty communicating and I would have to rely on body language, sounds and gestures to get my point across Now put a normal 6 year old in that same situation and I don't believe he/she would be successful.

[danmcq]

Training and learning go hand in hand. If you trained a human child, a pet or a student in school to do something, they learned and comprehended it at some point in time. That is how all humans and critters learn by both seeing, hearing and doing. Example, a feral child that has not learned language by age 6 is most likely from the studies I have read to never learn it. Language is not something we just know, we had to be trained by listening and learning from our parents and peers. Otherwise we would all just be grunting and making odd sounds that would convey very little.

 

I love hearing stories such as Alex's of creating their own words for items. Creativity is a wonderful thing to display true comprehension of our language and how it fits in to that bird brain, cork nut based on texture and taste make perfect sense in the world Alex grew up in. Dayo makes up words and sounds as well and I find it highly intriguing in getting a small glimpse of how language is being assimilated in his mind based on our words and actions. It gives great feedback on where to correct and work on things that may be undesirable. However things such as cork nut, I would not touch, it is just too unique and makes perfect sense.

 

This just goes to show that there is no need to compare to humans, birds think in their own realm of our world and we need to capitalize on paying close attention to these details and use them to build upon.

Edited August 1, 2012 by danmcq

[zandische]

I tend to explain to people that my birds are like "having a 3 year old child for life" because a) that makes it easy for most people to understand what it's like to live with a parrot and b) they really are like that when they are throwing their food everywhere, putting everything in their mouth, eating everything, chewing on everything, getting into everything, and screaming with glee every 5 minutes! These are instinctive parrot behaviors but are easy to personify as human because it's not uncommon for a 3 year old to exhibit all of them.

 

But in terms of cognitive learning ability, I don't believe you can equate the two species. In my experience and research, parrots learn differently than humans do, they think differently, and while they can interact linguistically, they are still processing information in a different way. I liken this to speaking to someone who is not a native English speaker, as was the case with my Russian friend, Lana. She once spent half an hour telling me about her family, how her son was growing up, how her parents felt one child was not enough, how his birthday party was next week, etc. When I finally asked her if she had ever considered having another baby, she looked at me like I was a moron and said, "That's what I've been telling you! I'm pregnant!" To which I responded, "Well why didn't you just say that!" But in Lana's mind, she had told me she was pregnant, just in a Russian way.

 

Cognitive ability goes beyond just learning language and using it appropriately, and as many studies have demonstrated, extends to the birds being able to solve complex problems (ex: http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2009/07/the-cleverness-of-crows/ ). In its most basic sense, cognition is the capability to learn, remember, apply knowledge (to solve problems) and make decisions. I agree with Dan that ultimately, cognition begins with training of some sort - training is the tool that teaches the animal (bird, human or otherwise) what its boundaries of thought are, and it is only once those boundaries have been established that the animal is capable of "evolving thought." In other words, if you don't know what you don't know, how do you know what to think about it?

 

So, from a parrot perspective, cognitive function occurs when the bird is able to learn (to step up results in a treat), the bird remembers what it has learned (steps up every time even when not offered a treat), the bird applies its knowledge (learns to associate the spoken words "step up" with the action) and the bird makes decisions (requests when to be picked up via word or verbalization.) Another example of this is the bird who learns to "go poop" over newspaper, associates the word with the action, and then makes the conscious decision to fly back to his cage (where the newspaper is located) and then returns to the owner when the deed is done.

 

You can train these behaviors, but ultimately, the bird has to take a role in the decision making process at some point. Why do people obey laws? Because they understand there are consequences for unlawful actions, and they reason that breaking the law is not a good idea. (Some people, anyway!) The reason behind why the bird chooses to do certain things is their cognitive function, and while it may not be on the same level as a human, I don't think we have begun to understand what level it is on.

 

From a personal standpoint, I've seen some pretty powerful evidence among my own birds of cognitive understanding. The first was with my first bird, who chose her own name. We named her "Athena" and one day she just decided she wanted to be called "T-bird" which was not something we ever called her or said to her. Somewhere along the lines she had heard the sounds of "T" and "bird" and decided they applied to her. (I don't have any idea whether she understood that "bird" meant her vs. us, but the name was certainly all her own thing.) I was calling her over to me by the name "Athena" and she was verbally arguing with me - every time I'd say "Athena" she would respond with "T-bird." When I finally realized she was correcting me, I said, "T-bird, come here," and she flew right to me. From there on after, she would not respond to the name "Athena" but responded immediately to the name "T-bird." She decided this when she was about 2. Thus, she became T-bird.

 

T also learned other things. When she was bad she knew that she would go back to her home; on the way she would tell us "Tbird, good bird" or "Tbird, love you." She knew she had been bad, and she was doing her best to say she was sorry. It often worked on us

 

Gryphon has learned to play catch. Initially, he learned that if he tossed a ball over the side of his toy basket one of us would try to catch it, and that this was a fun game because everyone would laugh. Put the toy back, repeat. Then he realized that he could throw the ball sideways, or behind him, or in a direction we weren't expecting, and that this would make it more challenging for us "to win." I didn't actually realize that he was throwing things in different directions on purpose until I saw him waiting to see what body position I'd take before he then adjusted his position to toss the ball in a way that made it impossible for me to catch, and then HE laughed at me. Gryph had realized the concept of "winning" - if we caught the ball it was a win for us, if we didn't, it was a win for him. And of course, the bird wanted to win

 

I think it's extremely hard for scientists to prove cognitive ability in animals, so their "testing" scenarios have to be extremely complex and well-planned to ensure that there is no possibility of a conditioned response. But when you see your birds inventing new words, using words in context, and making decisions on their own on a daily basis, it's easy to realize they have real intelligence that goes beyond classification at a 3-6 year old human level. Besides, if my bird only has the intelligence of a 6 year old, why did it take me 6 months to realize that all he wanted from me was to ask him nicely when I wanted him to step up? He taught me something...so how's that for cognition?

 

I prefer to think of my birds as "intelligent non-english speaking terrestrial aliens" than the equivalent of a 6 year old human

[danmcq]

Zandische - Excellent comments and thoughts! I always enjoy reading your posts. I agree with all you have said. I have always found it profound that T-Bird named himself. That is very rare and creative! Thank you for contributing to this topic.

[Sarasota]

Love this thread. And it brings to mind what the great George Schaller said about animal behavior...that to truly understand what an animal is doing, we need thousand hour eyeballs.