Although I am not the creator, this video is intended for educational purposes under YouTube’s fair-use policy.
Alex (1976 – September 6, 2007[1]) was an African Grey Parrot and the subject of a thirty-year (1977-2007) experiment by animal psychologist Irene Pepperberg, initially at the University of Arizona and later at Harvard and Brandeis University. Pepperberg bought Alex in a regular pet shop when he was about one year old.[2] The name Alex is an acronym for Avian Learning EXperiment.[3]His successor was Griffin.
Before Pepperberg’s work with Alex, it was widely believed in the scientific community that birds were not intelligent and could only use words by mimicking, but Alex’s accomplishments indicated that birds may be able to reason on a basic level and use words creatively.[4] Pepperberg wrote that Alex’s intelligence was on a par with that of dolphins and great apes.[5] She also reported that Alex had the intelligence of a five-year-old human[3] and had not even reached his full potential by the time he died.[6] She said that the bird had the emotional level of a human two-year-old at the time of his death.[7]
27 replies to "Alex The Parrot"
Sicuramente la dottoressa era affezionata ma come si spiega la autodeplumazione? Chredo fosse molto stressato!!!
Sad to see these studies , shameful
Alex wanted love
I’m sick of people overworking these birds. It shortens their life and it’s torture just to satisfy the researchers. They have no love lost for the bird but the birds want lots of love. Shame
Versione in italiano grazie
She took care of him very well. They were like a couple, a loving couple.
She is not bird.
She is Human.
End Aye M bird.
My love and respect for Alex and Dr Pepperberg still stands but it definitely hurts to hear the Alex begging to go back to its cage repeatedly .
danke nice video .beautiful 💐💐
From another video I couldn't believe how barren his JAIL CELL was. He was put into a cage with NO cover, no toys, no items of comfort. When he said "go back" she refused him. I guess he had 30 years of it and that was ENOUGH. And I wondered about the feathers — I've seen other pet birds on YT with feather issues.
lol to all that comments speaking about stress or anthropomorphising the bird's reaction.
I'm not really impressed for the parrot's performance in this video:
1.- No regrets for first experiment.
2.- She made two questions, and the parrot seems to be answering waiting a reaction. Clever Hans effect.
3.- Same for the How-Many-Keys experiment.
4.- Asking to "go back" too many times, and requesting water without drinking. Seems like random speech. The lady just adapt it to "you're just asking to interrupt".
5.- What colour is the bigger? Both keys are green!
6.- Just like on the third experiment, she asked 4 times the same question. And the answer on both cases were "two". Again, seems like Clever Hans effect.
Nice video, nice parrot, I see it was really well-trained. But, in this particular video, I just see no evidence of animal intelligence.
Nolan subscribed
These things no longer impress me. Leave the bird alone. Feed him, love him, enjoy him and stop treating him like an experiment.
No wonder he died sooo early!!!!
Alex and other birds go through this training process locked in closed labs, stressed out to learn and answer questions while all what they need and actually been created for is to be free enjoying their time with flying or whatever their nature drives them to do. I feel so sad when I watch this kind of videos, these birds need love and compassion which they don't find in these labs, who said that a parrot needs to count or learn colors and shapes…etc??? Why stressing them out and find them dead the next days like what happened to Alex??? So sad and humans are so cruel!
The last words of this parrot was : "You are a good human i love you" this words was to targeted to this woman.
they're smart…but they belong in the wild…..
Alex was a poorly birdie I'm sure he was well cared for God bless him 🎄🎄
I'm cringing so much while holding my own African Grey. I would never want her to go through such stress.
So damn cute!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, silly guys. She was not crazy. If alex did many things, then she can make him go back. But he didn't do many thing. Plz watch other videos and leave comments.
Go and read woman's book. The feather is not because of her, that's she couldn't find her perfect job and she sent alex to other person for some months. So he flucked his feather. Why you make her a crazy woman?
Man, poor little Alex. He's probably done that damn experiment thousands of times. If you look closely at his neck you can see missing feathers from stress plucking.
It really makes you feel for the parrot
irene pls luv me
"Want to go back" He wants to go back yet is forced to stay there. If you wanted to stop a session and come back later, you would feel you have the right to, right? Griffin, her newest African Grey says the same thing and doesn't get to, people are also mentioning that Griffins feathers are starting to get a lot like Alex's. Poor birds, not everything needs to be studied.. :/
Woooooooooow !!!!!!!'m
grrrrr your not taking care of him well! poor creature! hes not a machine that talks! hes a living creature! and yeah hes much smarter than you! he would never take you and put u in a rainforest where he asks you to do bird calls!