"I'm Mr. Yosuke Nakamura."

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by 3894

Researcher Irene Pepperberg has done a lot of linguistic work with her African grey Alex. Pepperberg found that Alex was as intelligent as a dolphin or great ape and had a vocab of about 150 words.

I will say up front that I know nothing of this particular bird. Also, I will say that the African Greys are quite intelligent. However, there is a lot of doubt over whether they are speaking the words as part of an intelligent conversation or if they are just trained to mimic specific sounds upon earing specific sounds. For example, while a dog may be trained to perform a specific act upon hearing a certain word, the actual word is irrelevant and is typically used for the ease of the trainer. While the dog may roll over when the trainer says "roll over" the dog could be just as easily trained to roll over when the trainer said "cucumber."

[3894]

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

However, there is a lot of doubt over whether they are speaking the words as part of an intelligent conversation or if they are just trained to mimic specific sounds upon earing specific sounds.

I'm not an expert on this either but there happened to be an article about this very thing in last week's New Yorker magazine.It's here.

Pepperberg was never particularly interested in teaching Alex language for its own sake; rather, she was interested in what language could reveal about the workings of his mind. In learning to speak, Alex showed Pepperberg that he understood categories like same and different, bigger and smaller. He could count and recognize Arabic numerals up to six. He could identify objects by their color, shape (“three-corner,” “four-corner,” and so on, up to “six-corner”), and material: when Pepperberg held up, say, a pompom or a wooden block, he could answer “Wool” or “Wood,” correctly, about eighty per cent of the time. Holding up a yellow key and a green key of the same size, Pepperberg might ask Alex to identify a difference between them, and he’d say, “Color.” When she held up two keys and asked, “Which is bigger?,” he could identify the larger one by naming its color. Looking at a collection of objects that he hadn’t seen before, Alex could reliably answer a two-tiered question like “How many blue blocks?”—a tricky task for toddlers. He even seemed to develop an understanding of absence, something akin to the concept of zero. If asked what the difference was between two identical blue keys, Alex learned to reply, “None.” (He pronounced it “nuh.”)

Pepperberg also reported that, outside training sessions, Alex sometimes played with the sounds he had learned, venturing new words. After he learned “gray,” he came up with “grain” on his own, and after learning “talk” he tried out “chalk.” His trainers then gave him the item that he had inadvertently named, and it eventually entered his vocabulary.

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

For example, while a dog may be trained to perform a specific act upon hearing a certain word, the actual word is irrelevant and is typically used for the ease of the trainer. While the dog may roll over when the trainer says "roll over" the dog could be just as easily trained to roll over when the trainer said "cucumber."

Uh isn't this just a characteristic of language? the meaning doesn't equal the word. In the example above you and the dog have agreed that the term "cucumber" means roll over.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

Uh isn't this just a characteristic of language? the meaning doesn't equal the word. In the example above you and the dog have agreed that the term "cucumber" means roll over.

If I recall correctly (YMMV), there is a delineation between a human being able to intelligently discern the meanings of spoken words whereas the dog is simply making a Pavlovian level response.

Another way to highlight this is that you can call a dog some of the most vile and profane names and threaten their lives, yet if you do it in a sweet voice, they wouldn't know the difference: they would think you are talking sweet to them. Whereas a human would know the difference.

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

Another way to highlight this is that you can call a dog some of the most vile and profane names and threaten their lives, yet if you do it in a sweet voice, they wouldn't know the difference: they would think you are talking sweet to them. Whereas a human would know the difference.

I'm not sure about that, most communication is non-verbal,which include elements such as tone. I'll concede that a dog probably doesn't get sarcasm, but would be pretty sure he can tell if your happy or angry with you regardless of your word choice.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

I'm not sure about that, most communication is non-verbal,which include elements such as tone. I'll concede that a dog probably doesn't get sarcasm, but would be pretty sure he can tell if your happy or angry with you regardless of your word choice.

That was the point: an animal can (for the most part) only detect your tone: the words mean nothing to them. If I used a happy tone to tell them I was going to kill them, they would think it was good. If I used a happy tone to tell you I was going to kill you, you would laugh at me.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

Whereas a human would know the difference.

That's not true. If you did the same thing to me in Swedish I wouldn't have a clue.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Alex

That's not true. If you did the same thing to me in Swedish I wouldn't have a clue.

But you would probably have a chance to at least know it was Swedish, German or Swahili, whereas to the the dog, it would all be the same gibberish.








Ya know... I really need to STFU and do some research for links here.

[Stan4dSteph]

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

Ya know... I really need to STFU and do some research for links here.

If you read the article that 3894 linked to above, there are a lot of references to academic papers; those are usually available online if recent, but not usually for free.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

But you would probably have a chance to at least know it was Swedish, German or Swahili, whereas to the the dog, it would all be the same gibberish.

If you spoke to me in various African languages, I wouldn't know which was which.

As said above - a dog is taught a word to mean "roll over". If you taught a human the same trick using the same word, the human would think that word meant "roll over", same as the dog does.