NVP Keynote Speakers: In gesprek met Irene Pepperberg



Irene Pepperberg [1]

Dr. Irene Pepperberg is a research associate and lecturer at Harvard University, where her lab is also based. She is renowned for her pioneering work in avian cognition [i.e. bird, red.] with her African Grey parrot, Alex. Some of her most recent work focuses on number acquisition and how African Greys perceive optical illusions. For an overview of her studies with Alex, see “The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots”. For a more personal story of her 30 years of working with the famous parrot, see “Alex & Me”. In addition to working with Alex, she has been working with Griffin for almost 20 years and recently baby Athena joined the lab.





Let’s start at the beginning. You started your career with a PhD in theoretical chemistry, after which you decided to study interspecies communication. Can you tell us how you came to the decision to make this major switch?

I had always loved animals, but had never realized one could have a career studying animal behavior. Nothing on the topic was mentioned in high school biology, and I went to MIT for college, where at the time biology was all about cells, hormones, the brain, etcetera. It was only when I was already in graduate school that I saw the first season of “NOVA”, a public-television production, very similar to the BBC “HORIZON” [vergelijkbaar met Noorderlicht in Nederland, red.] which covered themes about researchers studying animal-human communication. I had had budgerigars [grasparkieten, red.] as pets, and they always “talked”, so I knew birds could produce human-like speech. Watching the studies on apes and dolphins, I wondered why no one was studying birds, and decided to be the one. By that time, I was no longer enthusiastic about my theoretical work in chemistry, realizing that the modeling that was taking me years would eventually be done in hours with better computers, and now probably in nanoseconds.  So I started auditing biology and psychology classes at Harvard and reading voraciously in the libraries, while I finished the doctorate.

Why is it important to study avian cognition and communicative abilities?
 
I believe that we should pursue knowledge for its own sake; we never know where it will lead. However, we’ve shown that the training techniques we use with our birds can be used for children with developmental delays and autism. It is also true that people like to conserve species that they feel are ‘like’ humans, and by showing that these birds have human-like skills, we can make a strong case for conserving their habitat and eliminating poaching. 

Your decision to study avian cognition led to the start of your work with Alex, with whom you worked for 30 years. However, in the beginning, your proposals were met with ridicule. How did you deal with this and how did you eventually succeed in obtaining a grant?
 
Simple perseverance. I kept doing the work, using volunteer assistants, thankfully at the time being supported by my husband, until I got enough data that I could make a persuasive case. 

Could you share with us your favorite moment with Alex?

Anytime he showed he could outwit me, usually by jumping ahead and doing something more advanced than the current stage of the experiment.

In every edition of the Psychonoom, we publish anecdotes from researchers about funny experiences with test subjects during experiments. Can you share your favorite anecdote of something funny that Alex did during an experiment?
 
It was during “sponsor week” when we were at the MIT Media Lab.  I planned to have Alex demonstrate what we were doing with phonemes, the individual sounds that make up a complete word. We had started this project in Tucson, training Alex to sound out phonemes, but not because we wanted him to read as humans do. Instead, we wanted to see if he understood that his labels are made up of sounds that can be combined in different ways to make new labels. We knew that he sometimes babbled when alone, producing such strings as “green, cheen, bean, keen,” and so on. This suggested that he did indeed understand that labels are made of subunits that can be used in different ways. But, as always, we needed more scientific proof.
We used plastic refrigerator letters, each a different color. We taught him the sounds of the different letters or letter combinations. We would ask him, for example, “What color is ‘ch’?” and “What sound is purple?” He had become quite proficient. 

We had a very short amount of time scheduled for the demo, and the sponsors were very keen to see Alex do his stuff. I showed Alex a tray of his letters. “Alex, what sound is blue?” I asked. He answered “Ssss.” It was an “S”, so I said, “Good birdie.” He replied, “Want a nut.” Because we were pushed for time, I didn’t want to waste it with Alex sitting around eating nuts. I told him he had to wait, and asked, “What sound is green?” Alex answered “Ssshh.” Again he was right. Again I said, “Good parrot.” And again Alex said, “Want a nut.” “Alex, wait,” I said. “What color is ‘OR’?” “Orange.” “Good bird!” “Want a NUT.” Alex was obviously getting more than a little frustrated. He finally got very slitty-eyed, always a sign he was up to something. He looked at me and said, slowly, “Want a nut. Nnn....uh....tuh.”  

I was stunned. He had been trained on “N” and “T”, but not on “U”. It was as if he were saying, “Hey, stupid, do I have to spell it out for you?” More important, though, he had leaped over where we were with his training, which was individual phonemes, and gone on to sound out the parts of a complete word for us. Perhaps he was really saying to us, “I know where you’re headed with this work! Let’s get on with it. Let’s do whole words!!”




Alex and his birthday card [2]

When Alex passed away at age 31, you felt that he was not even near developing his full potential. Like you said, he was able to infer so many things nobody ever thought possible, such as a concept for “zero”, being able to vocalize numbers and to connect written numerals to the amount of objects they represent. What do you think other birds, like Athena, will be able to achieve now that you have gained so much experience in working and training with them?

We hope to learn more about the development of Athena’s vocalizations; we did tape Alex’s progression, but he was already a year old when he came to the lab, so the earliest parts of his development had passed. We rarely taped Griffin, because Alex interrupted all his sessions! We learned from the difference between Alex and Griffin that Athena needs special, separate time alone with the trainers, and that video and audiotaped tutoring will be useless. In terms of the cognitive abilities we hope to track, it is too early to say…Athena must first learn all the basic concepts!

In the beginning, people were very critical of your work. In your book you describe how you were adamant about keeping a “professional” relationship with Alex, as to not give anyone a reason to doubt the experiments. In 1995, you felt you bonded to strongly with Griffin to be the main experimenter. Do you feel different about this now, in 2013?

 

 

 

 
We still must be very careful. Even though people now accept the intelligence of these birds, the data must still be carefully obtained, and we must ensure that there is no bias in our reporting. So, yes, we interact all the time with Athena, playing with her and bonding with her, but we also keep a certain distance so we will be able to evaluate her progress.

What would you like to do in the coming years?
 
We just got a new baby Grey, so a lot of our work will involve tracking her development, and comparing her abilities to those of our older bird.
 
What in your opinion is the most promising way to further study animal cognition?

We need more funding, more university positions. The cut-backs in the US are particularly troubling.
If there were any one thing that scientists should do to improve science in general, what would it be?
Learn how to communicate with the general public so that the average person will understand what we do, why we do it, and why we should be supported; and stop disparaging scientists who do ‘popularize’ their work.
 
What advice would you give young people who are contemplating a career in science or who just started their research career? 
Find something about which you can be passionate. You don’t want to do science simply as a job, you want it to be something that engages you completely, so you look forward to every day in the laboratory.

You are president of “The Alex Foundation”. What is the main reason why people should support this cause?

We support research into avian communication and cognition and, as noted above, the research has benefits not only for our intellectual knowledge, but also for helping children and conservation efforts. We have no support other than private donations.

Is there any one thing you accomplished that you are most proud of?

Not one specific experiment, but rather being able to show that being a “birdbrain” is really a compliment!


[1]. Photo: Mike Lovett, Brandeis University Photographer (from: alexfoundation.org)
[2]. Photo: Jenny Pegg