Parrot grasps concept of zero

[Madame Butterfly 0]

Precocious parrot grasps the concept of zero

Bird seems to match the mathematical prowess of toddlers

 

Brandeis University

 

 

 

Updated: 6:44 p.m. ET July 8, 2005

A parrot has grasped the concept of zero, something humans can't do until at least the toddler phase, researchers say.

 

Alex, a 28-year-old African gray parrot who lives in a lab at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, has a brain the size of a walnut. But when confronted with no items on a tray where usually there are some, he says "none."

 

Zero is thought to be a rather abstract concept even for people. Children typically don't grasp it until age 3 or 4, Brandeis researchers say. Some ancient cultures lacked a formal term for zilch, even as recently as the Middle Ages.

 

 

 

Feathered phenom

Alex is a fairly skilled counter. In a test, he said "none" when items on his tray were cleared. More trials were done, and the avian Einstein "consistently demonstrated the ability to identify zero quantity by saying the label 'none,'" the study concluded.

 

Alex's null may be slightly different than your nada.

 

"Alex has a zerolike concept; it's not identical to ours, but he repeatedly showed us that he understands an absence of quantity," said Irene Pepperberg, who led the research

 

The result, published in the current issue of the Journal of Comparative Psychology, adds to growing evidence that birds and other animals are smarter than we thought.

 

A 2003 study in the journal Nature, for example, found that common marsh birds called coots can recognize and count their own eggs, even when other eggs are in the nest.

 

Black-capped chickadees were recently found to warn colleagues of danger by chirping about the size and actual threat of individual predators. The language of prairie dogs includes a word for humans.

 

Some animal intelligence is hauntingly familiar, like the male monkeys that pay to see female monkey bottoms. And studies show that monkeys, dogs and rats all know how to laugh.

 

There are obvious limits to animal intelligence, of course. Take the 450 sheep who recently jumped to their deaths for no apparent reason.

 

Parroting behavior?

One question that dogs animal intelligence research is whether remarkable, humanlike behaviors are innate and truly cerebral or if a creature is just parroting a trainer.

 

"It is doubtful that Alex's achievement, or those of some other animals such as chimps, can be completely trained," Pepperberg said. "Rather, it seems likely that these skills are based on simpler cognitive abilities they need for survival, such as recognition of more versus less."

 

Pepperberg said the study could help shed light on human learning disabilities.

 

She now plans to find out how well Alex can add and subtract.

[APW 0]

Animals are a lot smarter than most people give them credit for being.

I've seen my cats and dog grieve over the loss of a litermate,show happiness at another animals return or my own,display guilt by hiding or looking away when they've done something wrong (even if I don't know they've done it,yet)....

They're almost like children. :blink:

I love 'em.

[Madame Butterfly 0]

LOL, my dog is the same way.

 

I walk in and say "were you a good boy or a naughty boy today", the look he gives or doesn't give says it all.

 

He often just walks himself to his kennel after he's "confessed".

[Wishfire 2]

Wow, Alex the parrot is still alive? I remember seeing him on some children's show when I was a kid, almost 20 years ago! I remember the show showing Alex with some fruits. He could identify bananas and cherries by name, but couldn't grasp the name for red apples (to him, "apple" was a green fruit, not red), so he renamed them "banerry" because it looked like a big cherry, but the insides looked more like bananas. :blink:

[KIMIMELA 1]

My cat talks to me. I "meow" and he meows back, I ask him "what's wrong?" or "what do you want?" and he walks over to his bowl. I ask him to find his bowl and he runs to it and meows. :blink: I pick him up and he rubs his head against mine like the lions you see on TV.

 

:) God's animals are cool :)

[Odie 0]

Yeah, my Astro is smart for a dog. He knows when he is trouble or has something that I don't want him to have, because when I call out for him he starts to run towards his hidding spot. He can aslo recongize on the spot his favorite Japanese drink and will beg for it. I don't give it to him. Animals are smarter than we humans think.

[Bethlehem 7]

:) Pets are great and the more they are loved and taught the smarter they get. Just like are kids, friends, all other loved ones. :blink:

[ARMS 0]

Who says these Sheep jumped to their deaths out of stupidity, my IQ is 139 and i've attempted suicide 16 times. Maybe these sheep realised how dull their lives were compared to us. Mass suicide.

[Bethlehem 7]

ARMS are we equating high IQ to suicide or hight IQ to sheep?

[Wishfire 2]

I found this video, and it reminded my of this article, so I had to share it.

 

Einstein bird

 

It's not Alex, but it's still and African grey. And this video is very amusing.

[Eratosthenes 0]

Wow, both Alex and the bird in that video are amazing.

[ARMS 0]

ARMS are we equating high IQ to suicide or hight IQ to sheep?

338279[/snapback]

 

Ignorance is bliss, the greater our ability comprehend, the worse lifes problems can seem, if you feel negatively for long enough with your brain telling you so it can really drain your will to live. I'm not saying that intelligent people are more suicidal, but try and convince one that life is good, once they have determined it's not.

 

Of course my theory is likely wrong, but i hope it made you think, we share 50% of our DNA with a cabbage, a plant, and sheep are animals, more than that vertebrates, more than that mammals. There is a 1% difference between a Human and a Chimpanzee, and look how similar we are, without our culture and technology were not that different. The basis of what our advanced brains work on came from much more primitive animals.