Slashdot Mirror
Bird Brains Explain How Humans Learn to Talk
eaglebtc writes "A team of neuroscientists at MIT have made tremendous progress in understanding how birds learn to sing: a part of the brain called the basal ganglia is primarily responsible for controlling the learning of movement and the production of speech. This circuitry is also present in humans, and it is the same way that a baby's random babbling eventually becomes the proficient speech of adults. It is hoped that this research can provide further insights into Parkinson's Disease, an inherited genetic condition that causes rapid breakdown of motor control and speech production. The full research study is available as a downloadable PDF."
Exactly. This is why parrots that grow up in human environments can learn to talk. Now they aren't necessarily able to produce complete sentences, but they'll say 'bye' when you leave, 'hello' when you arrive, 'food' when they're hungry, and tons of other action-related words. They'll even mimic your actions to get other animals (or people) to come. They'll call the cats by saying "here kitty kitty", whistle for the dogs, or mimic the phone ringing to get a human :)
I keep Cockatoos. I never intended to have such large birds as pets, and would most certainly not encourage it. I landed up with them as a "gift" as the previous owner found them too difficult.
I would put their overall intelligence at around the 4 or 5 year human. With the addition that they are the most expert lock pickers.
Imagine if you will the tantrums of a 4/5 year old, add that the 4/5 year can fly, has a set of tools like a combination hammer, ice-pick, file, and nut cracker, and absolutely knows which items dotted about are the most valuable to destroy.
Often one of them imitates the phone ringing as I am about to leave the house. I could swear the blessed things are all sharing the joke.
I am often left pondering: who here is the pet?
threadeds blog