Talking Animals | Sci Guys Podcast #31

“You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you” were the last words of Alex the Parrot, who may have been the only animal to understand and engage in human speech

We cover the life of Alex, and the controversy surrounding his supposed ability to actually speak English.

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[froge]

In the intro, what she calls “copy and paste” is generally know as “masking”

[jessread]

Human brain: wow this podcast is fascinating I’d never thought of these things before
Monkey brain: hehe swimmy octopus 🐙 behind corry

[pokemonfanthings]

I read the book ‘Alex and Me’ as a child and it’s one of those books I still remember to this day.

[lottedejong]

The sound Luke made, made me actually think my cat was in the room. It sounds exactly like my cat.

[pokemonfanthings]

Alex’s Wikipedia page reads like he’s a human instead of born it says ‘hatched’ 😂

[evelyneb]

17:20
OK I have another thought now. I think we proces words faster than colours because, written words are already part of language. It says a word and you know how to pronounce it emediately because the word is already there. Whereas colors first need to be processed and then you can find the word that belongs with the colour, it's an extra step.

[mayorofsimpleton]

Unrelated, but my headphones died at the exact same moment as I turned off the oven and now I’m really confused

[JJapsen]

Well, fun fact: you can actually make vowel sounds without moving your lips (as long as they are opened) and moving your tongue just to a bare minimum, they are just slightly less pronounciated.
So parrots can possibly learn very basic communication?! What I wonder now is: Ravens and some other crows are able to mimic human language too and they are thought to be way more intelligent than other birds to the point where there is indication that they exhibit abstract and even analogical thought, wich was before solely attributed to primates. How much of what they are copying would they be able to actually understand? Someone needs to do this test with a raven.

[evelyneb]

15:00
Luke: People can't just hear the sounds, they can only understand the English language.
Me: Oh but I can do that!
Corry: That can actually happen to people with ADHD.
Me, an ADD kid: Well that explains that.. 😔

[gothiccck]

Fun fact I can hear English sentences as just noise because I'm dysbraxic... woohoo

[benbenben]

I have a cousin who got a tongue ring too far forward, then a second farther back because the first one was too close to the right spot. Then she "connected the dots" as she put it. It is so weird because she can do the taco tongue thing but left goes on top or right goes on top its so weird and awesome.

[fozziebean]

Dr. Irene Pepperberg wasn't just some lady with a parrot. She did her experiments in a scientific manner at renowned universities. She published scientific papers. She did prove that Alex understood concepts like colours and numbers. We don't need to be so skeptical. Her research speaks for itself. She also worked with other African Grey parrots who learned the same concepts that Alex did.