September 12, 2007--Bye, Bye Alex

Alex is dead. His longtime companion, Dr. Irene Pepperberg, announced that he died peacefully in his sleep, of apparently natural causes, and that his last words to her were, “You be good. See you tomorrow. I love you.” He had a long and distinguished career in the field of language acquisition and was widely respected and published. Some say that as the result of his achievements scientists have been challenged to think in new ways about what characterizes cognition and speech. I first met Alex at a conference on Mimesis that was organized and hosted by the remarkable polymath Jonathan Miller. Alex was there at NYU with his associate, Dr. Pepperberg, and after their session I was introduced to them. They were as compelling in person as they had been in the numerous books and articles about their work. Alex especially was open and friendly. The theme of the conference focused on imitative and adaptive behavior in all of the animal kingdom, including among humans. There were session devoted to the fascinating set of perplexities and challenges about the ways in which human beings and animals and even mechanical robots can be said to copy, imitate, impersonate, emulate, and generally influence one another. Presenters spoke about the ways in which children acquire many of their skills by copying their parents and peers, and explored the same issue in connection with the widely disputed subject of culture among primates and other animals. For instance, how, if at all, do chimps acquire their manual skills? Are they hardwired to do so or do they learn them by imitating their parents? Dr. Oliver Sacks was on the program and he spoke about his life-long work with individuals who have Tourettes Syndrome. A neurological condition in which at times those afflicted compulsively imitate humans and animals. Most intriguing and confounding was the work about which Dr. Pepperberg reported. Parrots are among the most mimetic of animals. Especially gray parrots which are the quickest to imitate human words. Until her work, it was agreed that this was all that parrots were capable of doing—merely, unknowingly mimicking words. It was thought that their brains were too small and underdeveloped to do anything resembling thinking or even constructing the simplest of sentences. But as the result of her three decades of work these ideas about parrots’ limitations were challenged if not overturned. Her collaboration with Alex, a gray parrot that she bought in a pet shop in 1977, demonstrated that he, at least, was capable of much more than rote imitation. Although parrots had long been known for their capacities in vocal mimicry, Pepperberg set out to show that their vocal behavior could develop the characteristics of human language. She found that Alex could acquire a large vocabulary, use it in a sophisticated way, and was able to learn to count and recognize shapes; all of which has been described by her and others as similar to that of a two year old child. Thus her work has strengthened the argument that humans do not hold the monopoly on the complex or semicomplex capacity to communicate abstractly. (See linked NY Times article.) Quite a guy, old Alex. I am only sorry that I didn’t get to know him better.