Irene Pepperberg - Alex & Me

 

So, it's 1970s. And I'm getting my doctorate in theoretical chemistry from Harvard. I'm watching NOVA programs on this groundbreaking work on training animals to communicate with humans, work on signing chimps in dolphin studies. I decide, that's it. I've had this epiphany. I'm going to change my whole field and do this work and I'm going to do it with a parrot. And parrots talk. They live for a long time, I thought this was the most incredible idea in the world, that I'd be part of this revolution. I finish the degree, I study up everything I can in the field, I write my grant proposal, I submit it, thinking, yes and no. The reviewers come back asking me what I'm smoking. 

 

The last time parrots and humans were connected-- Unlike apes, where we're connected pretty closely genetically, 280 million years ago, all right? You know, big, big difference. Parrots, unlike dolphins, they have this little tiny brain the size of a shelled walnut. Dolphins have this big brain. It makes sense to work with them. Not with a parrot. Plus, I'm working with animal that's a pet. I mean, how am I going to keep my scientific objectivity there? And plus, I'm not going to use the standard scientific techniques of the day, which means starve your animal to 80% of its normal body weight, stick it in a skinner box and go from there. No, no, I'm going to just talk to the bird. 

 

Yeah, right. But I'm really determined. I go out and I buy a parrot. It's a gray parrot. That's the name of the species and the color, he's a gray, different shades of gray, bright red tail. He's about this big, weighs about a pound. I name him Alex for avian learning experiment. [audience laughter] And so, I start training him by giving him modeling system. He's learning a couple labels. I put in the grant proposal. And this time, I'm really lucky. I have somebody on the panel who studies bird song, who recognizes the striking parallels between the development of vocal communication in birds and humans. 

 

So, I get a grant for a year, and it was quite a roller coaster of a life. But at the beginning, we started this work. And In Alex's first 10 years, he learned about 50 labels for objects. He learned to label seven colors. He learned to label five shapes, two, three, four, five and six cornered. He labeled different materials. He understood concepts. So, I could show him the object and I'd say, “Alex, what's this?” And he'd say, “Block.” And I'd say, “Good birdie. And what color?” “Blue.” “Good boy.” “And what shape?” “Four corner.” “And what matter?” “Wood.” He combined these labels, so he could identify 150 different things. 

 

This is a parrot, brain size of shelled walnut, could label about 150 different things. He learned concepts of bigger and smaller. So, I could show him two things and say, “What's color bigger? What color is smaller?” And he'd tell me. He learned, and this was really extraordinary concept of same and different. So, I could show him two things. And not just tell me that they were same or different, but he could tell me what about them was same or different. So, I say, “What's same?” He'd tell me color, shape, matter, or none if nothing were same or different. And this was pretty exciting work. 

 

Again, Alex is about 10 years old, and I'm invited to the International Primatological Congress. This is a big deal. International Congress. I'm speaking in front of a thousand people. I'm the only person there who is not a primatologist. I am the one person who has been invited to talk on comparative behavior. I'm talking about a bird again, brain size of shelled walnut to all these people who are working with apes, and orangutans and whatever. So, I get up and I give my talk. At the end of my talk, one of the-- We call them the silverback males. [audience laughter] 

 

One of the senior primatologist gets up and I'm going, “Okay, here it comes. I'm just going to get totally creamed.” And he said, “Well, very interesting little study you did there. But you mean to tell me that your bird did something much more complicated than pre max apes?” And I want to say, “Yeah,” and backwards and in heels to be honest. [audience laughter] But I say, “No.” And I smile, I say, “No, sir. That's right, sir, he did.” And I'm thinking, “Okay.” And he says, “Oh,” and he sits down, and I'm going, “Oh, I've done it. I've made it. Yay.” 

 

But a couple of weeks earlier, I'd gotten this little letter from National Science Foundation saying, “You know what? It was a nice proposal, but we ran out of money, so no more funding.” So, I'm sitting there going, “Okay, how are we going to keep the lab going at this point?” So, we fast forward a little bit. It was still very hard for me to get some recognition from colleagues even with these successes. There was always the question of scientific objectivity. I dealt with it by treating Alex like a colleague, the way I would treat my students. You work with them, you teach them as much as you can, you respect them, but you draw a line between the way you interact with them and the way you interact with your own children or the way you interact with your significant others to keep that scientific objectivity. 

 

We're doing okay. Again, by this time, we're doing a lot of publicity, we're doing Scientific American Frontiers in Discovery Channel, and 48 hours. Alex is about 15, and we get an invitation to do radio from the BBC. And by this time, Alex's personality is really coming to a four, because he's learned not just to answer questions, but to label and to interact and ask me questions. And so, now I'm thinking radio. I could ask him anything and I could say, “Yes, good boy,” because they can't see what's going on. [audience laughter] So, I think, “All right, how am I going to do?” So I go, “Okay.” 

 

So, I start the program and I say, “Okay, I'm holding an orange square piece of wood and I'm going to ask Alex some questions.” So, you hear my heels click, click, click as I go into the room and I go, “Alex, going to ask you some questions. Going to do some work.” And I go, “Alex, what color?” Little birdie voice, “No. You tell me what shape.” [audience laughter] “Okay, Alex, it's four corner. Now, can you tell me what color?” “Tell me what matters.” “Okay, Alex, it's wood. Can you tell me what color?” “No. How many?” Alex, there's one toy here. 

 

Part of me again is going, “Oh, this is so cool. He's not just acting like a little robot. he's interacting with me, he's talking with me.” The other part of me is going, “But they really want to hear him answer some questions.” So, I'm going, “Alex, come on. What color?” And he goes, “No, tell me what shape.” And I go, “Okay, Alex. Time out. You're misbehaving.” You hear my heels as I start to walk out the door, giving him a timeout, and then comes the little birdie voice, “I'm sorry. Come here. Orange.” [audience laughter] 

 

So, obviously I treated Alex like a colleague, but he didn't necessarily treat me like a colleague. We got a gig at the Media Lab at MIT. Big time. I'm hired for a temporary position that could be extended to use the bird as a model for intelligent learning systems. But once I'm there and I start looking at all the gizmos and whatever they have, I start developing for the sponsors animal human communication systems to enrich the birds lives, all these animals, Inter Pet Explorer web browsers for parrots, things like that. Those of you who know the Media Lab know that the sponsors come who've given us all this money to do these things come twice a year to see what we've done with their money. 

 

Well, word had gotten out that there was a live bird and they wanted to see Alex. They come through in waves, five to seven minutes. What we were doing was showing him refrigerator letters, the things you show your kids to have them sound out the letters in the hope that somewhere down the road he'd be able to like-- We could put the letters together and he could maybe sound out a label to see if he understood what these sounds meant. Okay. But he's at this very early stage. And the task at this point, we put all the letters on a tray. They're different colors and, we ask Alex “What color is sh.” And he goes, “Blue. Good birdie.” “Want a nut? Okay, Alex, you can't have a nut. We've only got these people for five minutes. Let's do another thing.” “Okay.” “What sound is green? Sh.” “S-H. Good birdie. What a nut? Wait, wait.” So, we do this several times, and each time he's getting more and more upset, because he's not getting his reward. 

 

And finally, after about four or five times, he looks at me and goes, “What nut? N Uh-T” [audience laughter] And typical Alex, he's telling me, “Stupid. Do I have to spell it for you?” [audience laughter] But the other part of it is I'm thinking he's gone light years ahead of us, because N and T were on the tray, but uh was not. So, he had figured out himself how to split the words apart into the sounds and use them. So, again, after all of these high points the Media Lab gig falls apart. I'm actually on unemployment for a while. I get a Radcliffe fellowship to help things through. But to keep the lab going, I'm going to bird clubs every other weekend, literally, to raise money. I have to raise $100,000 a year to keep the lab going. It's getting more and more crazy, and we're trying to figure out what's going on. 

 

My colleagues at Harvard have this great idea that Alex has been so interactive and fun. “Maybe we should start looking at how he sees the world literally. Can he do optical illusions?” So, we put together a grant. And of course, it's rejected the first time. We fix it up, we resubmit it. It's September 2001. A little bit later that week, I'm sitting at my desk eating breakfast, which I do. Emails are coming in from Europe and Japan. And one comes in from Europe. I Talk has been funded. Yay. Okay. It's a big European consortium, millions of euros coming through for this. I'm a consultant. No real money, but they send me to Europe once a year to use Alex as a model for intelligent learning systems. I'm thinking again, yes, justification of our work. We're on an upswing. I'm so excited. 

 

Get a second cup of coffee, sit down. And there's another email with the tag sad news from the head vet at Brandeis where the birds are. I open this email, but it's not exactly bad attack, except that one found a dead parrot in the back left hand corner of the room. And I freeze and I'm going, “This is not true. It can't be. This is a nightmare.” I'm going to wake up. But I call Brandeis and no, Alex has passed in the night. I go into complete shock, because this is a bird. He's now 30 years old. We're supposed to have another 20 years here. I can't believe it. Obviously, I'm not functioning. I kept a diary, but I can't-- It's hard to even talk about it now. 

 

So, over the weekend, friends come up. They drive from Washington to be there with me to make sure I'm fed, to roll me into bed, so I won't sleep, but to get some rest. Other friends locally are taking care of me too. My board of directors from the foundation sets up an obituary because I can't-- I'm just totally out of it. I'm like walking into walls. Monday morning comes and I call the Brandeis PR folks, the folks I've been working with for all these years, because every time Alex had done something cool, the media would pick up on it and we do some interviews. So, I call them. Laura, my friend there, says, “Irene, I'll put this out. But you notice this is a bird. It's not going to get any traction, but I'll put it out.” I say, “Fine, whatever.” 

 

By the time I drive the 40 minutes from my house to Brandeis, my cell phone is ringing off the hook. My lab manager's cell phone's ringing off the hook. The lab, it’s phone is ringing off the hook. We're being asked for interviews all over the world. Interview mode, I can handle. I've done this for years. Pick up phone, close eyes, answer questions as they come, hang up phone, take the next interview, fine, that I can deal with. I'm doing this for a week. Meanwhile, emails are pouring in. 3,000 to my own account. Boxes and boxes of letters are coming from people all over the world. Alex gets three articles in the New York Times, an obituary in the Economist. [audience laughter] Yeah. I'm still in total shock. It's just nothing's coming through. 

 

Finally, I get this big box of letters, but there's a little box inside. I open it up and it's from grade school class. And the week before Alex died, the teacher had brought her gray parrot into the classroom to teach them about animal intelligence and conservation issues. When the kids learned about Alex death, they said they all wanted to write sympathy notes. So, they all drew pictures of Alex and then little notes to me. I'm opening one of these and it's from a little boy and he says, “I know how you feel. My grandma died this summer and someday your heart will heal.” That's when all these barriers that I had put up to keep Alex on the other side of my emotions, so I could do the science, it came through that there wasn't going to be any more science. Alex was gone. All these emotions broke through and I realized I had lost the most important being in my life. Thank you.