Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Uncovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence–and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process

167 Pages·2008·1 MB·English

by  Irene Pepperberg

Alex & Me
How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal
Intelligence—and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process
Irene M. Pepperberg
To Alex
Contents
Chapter 1: My Wonderful Life Moment
Chapter 2: Beginnings
Chapter 3: Alex’s First Labels
Chapter 4: Alex and Me, the Vagabonds
Photographic Insert
Chapter 5: What’s a Banerry?
Chapter 6: Alex and Friends
Chapter 7: Alex Goes Hi-Tech
Chapter 8: The Next Horizon
Chapter 9: What Alex Taught Me
Acknowledgments
Searchable Terms
About the Author
Praise
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
My Wonderful Life Moment
H
ow much impact could a one-pound ball of feathers have on the world? It
took death for me to find out. And so I write the story of a particular bird’s life,
but it must begin at the end.

“Brainy Parrot Dies, Emotive to the End,” ran a New York Times science
section headline on September 11, 2007, the day after our press release
announcing Alex’s passing. “He knew his colors and shapes, he learned more
than 100 English words,” wrote Benedict Carey, “and with his own brand of
one-liners he established himself in television shows, scientific reports and news
articles as perhaps the world’s most famous talking bird.” Carey quoted my
friend, colleague, and expert on dolphin and elephant communication, Diana
Reiss: “The work revolutionized the way we think of bird brains. That used to be
a pejorative, but now we look at those brains—at least Alex’s—with some awe.”
I found myself saying much the same thing in the newspaper, magazine,
radio, and television interviews that overwhelmed me those first few days.
People would ask, “What is all the fuss about, why was Alex so special?” and
I’d say, “Because a bird with a brain the size of a shelled walnut could do the
kinds of things that young children do. And that changed our perception of what
kinds of things that young children do. And that changed our perception of what
we mean by ‘bird brain.’ It changed the way we think about animal thinking.”
That was the scientific truth I had known for many years, and now the idea was
beginning to be accepted. But that didn’t help me with the personal devastation.
Friends drove up from Washington, D.C., that first weekend to ensure I
would not be alone, that I would eat and at least try to rest. I functioned each
minute, hour, day on automatic pilot, doing whatever was necessary, deprived of
sleep, torn by grief. And all amidst this very public outpouring. I was aware of it,
of course, yet not fully aware, not then, anyway. I was cognizant of the gathering
acclaim, inevitably so because of this endless stream of interviews. But it
seemed to involve someone else, or at least had an unreality to it. The phone
would ring and I’d click into “interview mode,” responding as I had many other
times when something Alex had done occasioned a media blitz, responding in a
professional manner to the inquiries. This time, however, I’d fall apart until the
next call.
Pictures of Alex appeared on CNN, in Time magazine, and in scores of other
places across the country. National Public Radio ran a story on All Things
Considered: “Alex the Parrot, an Apt Student, Passes Away.” ATC’s host,
Melissa Block, said, “Alex shattered the notion that parrots are only capable of
mimicking words.” Diane Sawyer did a two-and-a-half-minute segment on
ABC’s Good Morning America—long for morning television, I’m told. “And
now I have a kind of obituary,” she began, “and I want to inform the next of kin
about a death in the family. And, yes, the next of kin would be all of us.” She
said that Alex had been a kind of bird genius, “opening new vistas on what
animals can do.” She aired a video that showed Alex answering questions about
the color, shape, and number of objects, and so on. The video landed on
YouTube. The previous day, CBS anchor Katie Couric devoted more time to
Alex’s life and death than to major political stories.
Two days later, the prominent British newspaper, The Guardian, wrote,
“America is in mourning. Alex, the African Grey parrot who was smarter than
the average U.S. president, has died at the relatively tender age of 31.” The story
was spreading around the world, eventually to Australia. Robyn Williams, from
the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s radio Science Show, interviewed me,
the second time we’d talked about Alex and his achievements. The first time,
five years earlier, we’d talked about what other feats Alex might achieve in his
future. Not this time.
I was told that the New York Times article had been the most e-mailed story
of the day, even while General David Petraeus was testifying in Washington,
D.C., on Iraq. A second New York Times article, on September 12, in its
Editorial Notebook section, was titled simply “Alex the Parrot,” by Verlyn
Klinkenborg. This piece was a little more philosophical than most. “Thinking
about animals—and especially thinking about whether animals can think—is
like looking at the world through a two-way mirror,” Klinkenborg began.
“There, for example, on the other side of the mirror, is Alex…. But looking at
Alex, who mastered a surprising vocabulary of words and concepts, the question
is always how much of our reflection we see.” The article ended: “The value [of
the work] lies in our surprise, our renewed awareness of how little we allow
ourselves to expect from the animals around us.” A lovely piece, another
acknowledgment. But it still felt unreal.
Even Jay Leno had a crack at Alex, on his late-night TV show. (A friend told
me about it; I don’t have a working TV.) “Sad news: a thirty-year-old parrot by
the name of Alex, who had been used by researchers at Harvard University to
study how parrots communicate, has died,” said Leno. “I believe his last words
were, ‘Yes, I want a cracker!’” He went on, “This parrot was very intelligent.
They say he knew over one hundred words. They say his intelligence was
somewhere between a dog and Miss Teen South Carolina.” Sigh.
By now every major newspaper had covered Alex’s death, noting his
remarkable cognitive skills and our breakthrough work together. Even the
venerable British science journal Nature wrote about it in “Farewell to a Famous
Parrot.” “Pepperberg has published dozens of scientific papers about Alex’s
verbal, mathematical and cognitive abilities,” noted David Chandler, “and the
two have appeared on a wide variety of television programmes and popular press
stories.” Chandler continued, “In the process, they have transformed people’s
understanding of the mental abilities of non-human animals.” (A bittersweet
irony here: when I started working with Alex three decades earlier, a paper I
submitted to Nature was summarily dismissed without review—as was another I
had submitted more recently.)
If, in retelling this outpouring of public recognition, I seem oddly absent, it
is because in truth I was. Inasmuch as I was aware of article after article—and
friends were assiduous in sending them to me—I continued to let them and their
message wash over me. Yes, I was busy with the issue of facing and surviving
each new day, busy being interviewed, busy with the lab. At the same time, I
could hardly hear what was being said. I had for years been hoping that Alex’s
could hardly hear what was being said. I had for years been hoping that Alex’s
achievements would be fully acknowledged, and now it had happened, but I
couldn’t see it clearly, hear it clearly. Not immediately, anyway.
When, a little more than a week after Alex left me, the New York Times did a
third article, “Alex Wanted a Cracker, but Did He Want One?” I began to take
notice. George Johnson, a senior science writer, beautifully described the
research, and addressed the issue of intention, implicit in the article’s title. In the
United States, the Times is a touch-stone for public recognition, whether in
politics, the arts, or the sciences. And here was Alex, appearing three times
within a week in the paper of record. Hmm, I thought. Maybe there’s something
to all this?
Then, a few days later, a friend called. “Irene, you are never going to believe
this. Alex is in the Economist!” She was right. I wasn’t going to believe it. The
Economist is probably the world’s preeminent weekly magazine on politics,
finance, and business. Each week it has a one-page obituary of some notable
dignitary. In the September 20 issue, Alex was that dignitary. Alex’s death, said
the article, brought to an end “a life spent learning complex tasks that, it had
been originally thought, only primates could master.” The obituary went on to
say that “by the end [of the study] Alex had the intelligence of a five-year-old
child and had not reached his full potential.” Not reached his full potential—how
true, how tragically true.
Given that in the weeks prior to Alex’s obit the Economist had run Luciano
Pavarotti’s, Ingmar Bergman’s, and Lady Bird Johnson’s, I knew just how big
an honor it was for Alex to be on this obituary page. It really caught my
attention.

In the days and weeks following Alex’s death I was roiled by multiple tsunamis
of surprise, around me and within me, while struggling to deal with the practical
matters, answering phone calls, making arrangements, and much more, because
of who Alex was. And my mind was desperately churning: What’s to become of
the lab? What’s to become of the research? What’s to become of everything
we’ve created? What’s to become of me?
I felt swept up in the kind of speeded-up, whirling, swirling cloudscape that
one sometimes sees in movies. Except that the concept of the cloudscape went
beyond the physical image of chaos to a reality that turned upside down