https://alexfoundation.org/45th-anniversary-of-the-lab-reflections/
"June 15th marked a very special day this year…the 45th anniversary of the
start of my work with Alex! The world of avian behavior was very different
then: No one believed that birds were intelligent, particularly given their
tiny brains that looked nothing like ours. Even the way intelligence was
studied was mostly limited to a standard protocol that involved locking a
subject in a box and letting it figure out the task by trial-and-error learning
(e.g., a red light shines, then a choice of red versus green appears; if red is
chosen, initially by chance—a “match”—a reward is given but if green is chosen,
again initially by chance—a nonmatch—a time-out occurs).
But there I was, a young woman whose Ph.D. was actually in theoretical
chemistry, sitting across from a nervous, roughly year-old African grey parrot,
in a very small room in the basement of the Department of Biological Sciences
at Purdue University; I believed that parrots were smart and that I could use a
then-revolutionary training technique, based on observational learning, to
change the way the world thought about a “birdbrain.”
Our path wasn’t easy, and a friend once jokingly said that it was littered with
the remains of those who said it couldn’t be done. And it certainly wasn’t done
alone. First and foremost, was Alex, who was picked by chance from among nine
other young Grey parrots in a pet store…he could have ended up anywhere else!
My initial co-workers were also so very important: I started with a very few
undergraduates, some high school volunteers, and even some other faculty wives
who were determined to help me make more of a place for myself at the
university than they had managed. Without them, I could not have put my plan
into effect."
Via 7B'JaJaDa.
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
