Pepperberg 9603803 The PI's goals are to examine the cognitive and communicative capacities of Grey parrots. Results from these studies will provide insights into the evolution of intelligence, how input affects learning, and comparative neurobiology and anatomy. (1) Comparisons with other "language"-trained animals (e.g., on representational abilities and how well problem-solving skills are transferred to new contexts) will demonstrate the extent to which intelligence has evolved (independently) in mammals and birds: It is not yet known, for example, if labels acquired by Grey parrots represent board or narrow (specific) concepts: Do parrots that, for example, label a particular sound pattern as "3" understand that this concept of "threeness" extends to physical entities? The PI will examine how well such transfer occurs without training. In addition, can a bird extend concepts, such as bigger/smaller, that are learned in one context (e.g., mass) to respond to questions in another context (e.g., ordinality of number)? The experiments will provide information about parrots' comprehension of such concepts and data for cross- species comparisons. (2) Data on how various aspects of input affect learning and the extent of parrots' communicative abilities may enable us to improve programs for other interspecies communication projects and possibly for dysfunctional humans: Parrots that are taught a human- based code can undergo experimental manipulations to determine optimal conditions for learning the code; these conditions may be extended to other species. The experiments focus on the extent to which acquisition is affected by (a) species identity of the trainer and (b) the amount of reference, functionality, and social interaction in the training input. (3) Showing how parrots, with brains and vocal tracts so unlike those humans, acquire meaningful English speech provides comparative data on neuroanatomical correlates of cognition and on how differen t anatomical structures produce similar sounding utterances. Differences exist in psittacine and human neural and auditory mechanisms, yet speech patterns are mutually comprehensible; my data should provide insights into speech perception and information processing. Parrots and humans differ with respect to lungs, bronchi, trachea, nasal cavity, larynx, and tongue, and parrots uniquely use air-sacs and a syrinx whereas humans uniquely use lips and teeth; I am therefore studying alternative mechanisms for producing human speech. (4) Finally, elucidating the intelligence of Greys may encourage conservation efforts for all psittacids.
