According to the behaviorists, moreover, the sound itself becomes reinforcing, if only secondarily (the 'secondary reinforcer'),īecause of what it predicts (Mowrer 1954).

The noise would then be considered a signal (in the parlance of the behaviorists, a 'conditioned stimulus')įor subsequent appearance of the positive action (a reward, or 'primary reinforcer').

264), for example, 'Hello,'įollowed by a positive action such as a trainer appearing from behind a screen or uncovering the cage. Next, trainers produced 'certain characteristic noises' (p. The first step was to make the bird totally dependent upon its trainersįor food, water, and social attention-that is, a bird received food and water only in the presence of its trainers. Mowrer (1952, 1969) used procedures such as the following to teach a bird to produce 'Hello' upon the appearance of its trainers. Interestingly, although his birds were trained according to principles of association and reward, they were neither socially isolated nor placed in operant chambers for their sessions. Melopsittacus undulatus a Yellow-headed parrot, Amazona ochrocephala and a Grey parrot), and used standard psychological techniques-basically the operant methodology described in the previous chapter-prevalentĪt the time. Pica), crows (species not reported), and several psittacids (budgerigars, He studied mynahs (Gracula religiosa), magpies (Pica I was not the only scientist to reason that the vocal ability of mimetic birds, coupled with their considerable intelligence, should enable them to learn to communicate with humans using speechlike sounds. I conclude with a somewhat technical description of the testing procedures and rigorousĬontrols I used to determine what my parrot had learned and to ensure that his responses were based on his understanding of the questions and concepts and not on extraneous cues. I explain how my techniques were derivedįrom a theoretical framework that examined the effect of social interaction on learning I describe this theoretical framework in detail. I describe the one project to succeed in training birds to acquire human speech, albeit without comprehension, and the likely reasons for its success. I first provide a brief history of the projects and failures that preceded my research and what I deduced were the possible In this chapter I describe the training and testing techniques I developed to study cognition and communication in Grey parrots. Must do the greater part in securing an understanding.īrave Buffalo, a Teton Sioux (Densmore 1918:172) The animals want to communicate with man, Let a man decide upon his favorite animal and make a study

Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots

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