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Wild Parrots Learning To Talk From Escaped Pet Birds
bazzalunatic writes "Be careful what you teach a parrot. Some chatty pet parrots that have escaped back into the wild have taught wild parrots to talk. Seems the phenomenon could be integrated into the flock through generations. From the article: 'The evolution of language could well be passed on through the generations, says Ken. "If the parents are talkers and they produce chicks, their chicks are likely to pick up some of that," he says. This phenomenon is not unique; some lyrebirds in southern Australia still reproduce the sounds of axes and old shutter-box cameras their ancestors once learnt.'" While this doesn't reach the amazing level of Washoe the chimpanzee teaching sign language, it is still interesting and reminiscent of something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
Maybe they really are pining for the fyords.
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
Will now be greeted with the endless chants of "Get off my lawn!".
Rise of the Planet of the Parrots
You would think that entropy would degrade any language learned pretty quickly, but those lyrebirds seem to demonstrate that sort of behavior sticks rather than fades rapidly.
Makes me wonder how small a trigger was required to spark human speech evolution. At one time, we probably weren't all that different than these lyrebirds/parrots.
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Parrots learn words but not language. Associating words with rewards through Pavlovian training is not communication. Clearly spoken gibberish is still gibberish.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
I have noticed this with my quaker (monk) parrots. I have had sets of two over the past 25 years and what the two birds I have today was actually originally tough to previous birds I once had. It seems that they teach each other much like children teach children's games to one and other.
Parrots have been observed teaching other adult parrots to talk, so I'm not sure what's more amazing about Washoe. Unlike chimps, the wild parrots learned as well.
Have parrots successfully passed the Turing test... this seems like very much the same approach as cleverbot... robottically repeating sounds and phrases that it once heard without any read understanding of meaning
One of Washoe's caretakers was pregnant and missed work for many weeks after she miscarried. Roger Fouts recounts the following situation:
"People who should be there for her and aren't are often given the cold shoulder--her way of informing them that she's miffed at them. Washoe greeted Kat [the caretaker] in just this way when she finally returned to work with the chimps. Kat made her apologies to Washoe, then decided to tell her the truth, signing "MY BABY DIED". Washoe stared at her, then looked down. She finally peered into Kat's eyes again and carefully signed "CRY", touching her cheek and drawing her finger down the path a tear would make on a human. (Chimpanzees don't shed tears.) Kat later remarked that that one sign told her more about Washoe and her mental capabilities than all her longer, grammatically perfect sentences."[22]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washoe_%28chimpanzee%29
Damn, that's incredible
They actually know the point of what they are saying. My birds know our names, say thinks like "thank you" when they want something, "night night" when they want their cage covered, "hello" when the phone rings, "water" when they want to be sprayed, and say "don't bark" when my dog barks.
Everyone go out, buy some parrots, teach them all sorts of language, "lose" them, done.
Pretty soon, we will have parrots the world over saying "quaack, GET OFF MY LAWN, beowulf cluster quaaaack"
This. Must. Happen.
Wandering in the jungle hearing voices.... "Zoom zoom zoom"
Parrots and TV commercials don't mix...
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Even my cat has mastered stuff like that. He knows his name or that it means I want his attention, and "treats" and "food" and "shutup". He also will stand near whatever he wants solved and cry. By that I mean stand near a dirty litter box and cry for it to be cleaned, or food bowl that is empty or closed door. Meaning he at the very least understands that getting my attention when something is wrong can solve it. Which as simple conditioning goes seems pretty reasonable for a cat to get.
He cannot make new stuff up, but this simple level of communication seems common among animals. I wonder how many humans can't do any more than that anyway.
While E.Starlings are not as talented at it as other mimics, they can achieve a somewhat 'bad recording' style mimic of the human voice. They're also the ones notorious for producing large undulating clouds in the sky (consisting of thousands if not, in extreme cases, millions of birds.) Point being, I've always wanted to somehow snag a gigantic flock of these birds and train them all to say something creepy like 'i'll get you' before releasing them back into the wild.
None of these parrots escape from homes that frequently watch Jersey Shore. Future generations will despise us.
How does it feel to be a liar with pants constantly on fire?
Look forward to our new talking parrot overlords.
IT was funny as hell in college when I bought that bird that had problems for almost nothing.... $50.00 for a Blue and Yellow giant McCaw is unheard of and he was a nice bird, never bit hard....
But it would wear a LOT. "fucking watermelons" was one of it's favorite things to say. It's funny for about 3 months. then the damn thing's non stop talking and swearing get's old. it would assemble strange words together as well. I had that bird for 5 years before I found a zoo that would take him and deal with the problems.
He loved sitting on people and then sqwuak as loud as possible into the ear, then start swearing at you.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You would be surprised. my 3 year old mental experiment cat recently started playing fetch. She would go and get a small cat toy and bring it to you. if you throw it away she goes to get it and brings it back.
Nobody trained it, it learned it by watching the dog and decided... that looks fun.
Animals can come up with new solutions. I have seen dogs try something new to get to a bit of food under a table.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I keep parrots and have been predicting this for some time. The ability to talk is incredibly advantageous in a world increasingly dominated by people, and so there would be a strong selection effect in its favor. Since they can do it, and since there are birds passing between the wild and the human worlds, I would look for this to spread, especially (as the story says) for birds in city flocks.
Good for you! This typically means you have above average intelligence. The average dog can learn a vocabulary of over two hundred words. The average cat somewhat less, but close. Parrots can easily master double that.
I've had complete conversations with my cat in the past. Did he understand every word? No. Did he understand enough to comprehend the discussion. Yes.
Many people confuse comprehension with active use. I'm constantly amazed at sites with so many so-called intelligent people, who in the past will rush to assure you these animals are simply mocking and are incapable of comprehension or anything other than brainless, dumb parroting. For anyone who has attempted to learn a second language, its much the same. Its also like speaking to a young child. You can frequently understand more than you can verbalize yourself. Likewise, many young children understand the parent far better than the child itself can communicate back.
I've even had discussion with people who assured me its impossible for an animal to communicate because, after all, their animal doesn't understand anything. I'm forced to remind them that if they treat their children like dumb animals and only communicate by screaming and beating them, they'll quickly have dumb children which will rival the stupidity of their animals.
Many animals are surprisingly intelligent and capable of rather rich communication so long as the owner takes time to teach AND LEARN. Commonly cats are thought of as extremely unintelligent. Every time I've encountered this, its always been the owner who has been extremely dumb and unintelligent, incapable of communication. I say this because people rush to forget, or refuse to acknowledge, many animals perform much of their communication with body language. This is especially important for animals like cats. For example, I could tell my cat I wanted to roughly play by turning by body sideways, puffing my body, and slowly progressing toward him. Oddly enough, this is the same language they use with each other and what he used with me. Its funny as hell for a human to do, but it communicates everything to a cat.
If you own an animal of moderate or higher intelligence and make no effort to both teach it your language and learn theirs, you don't live with a pet - you simply cohabitate with an animal; to which it can make the same claim.
I know a parrot that has put together new phrases to describe objects that he is unfamiliar with. He enjoys having water misted or sprayed lightly on him, and will ask for a 'shower'. However, he dislikes being outside in the rain. whenever he hears or sees rain outside, he proclaims 'bad shower' but was never taught that. he uses the same tonal inflection that he uses when he calls the dog over then says 'bad dog. go lay down'. He can be a jerk sometimes.
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We have a cat that likes to play fetch and we don't even have a dog for him to have learned from.
I call {{fact}}.
I think one of the TinTin/Kuifje comics already used this as a joke, or otherwise it was an early Suske&Wiske. Which means it's from 1960 or before, so nothing new here.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
Rise of The Planet Of The Parrots!
Laugh it up, talking parrots are everywhere. They have infiltrated our sites and our TVs, spreading misinformation and fanbotism in an attempt to undermine the gullible humans.
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
Krrck - Don't tame me, bro.
Fandroids hate facts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uguXNL93fWg
According to William S. Burroughs (and a Laurie Anderson song inspired by him), language is a virus.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
he uses the same tonal inflection that he uses when he calls the dog over then says 'bad dog. go lay down'. He can be a jerk sometimes.
Does the dog listen to the parrot?
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Since I use my parrot as my password database (she's pretty good at repeating the password if I give her the account name) I better make sure the next generations don't get away from me. OTOH - it's good to know I have a backup system, of sorts, going for my passwords now.
Same here. My male cat will fetch a balled up soda straw wrapper, etc and drop it in your hand, ready for you to throw it again.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Birds have been proven (by SCIENCE no less) to be fairly intelligent animals, totally not honoring that silly "bird brain" nonsense. Is this surprising to anyone with a minimum of interest in ornithology?
It seems the cat has conditioned you well.
FRA: STFU GTFO
It contains both original fottage from 30 years ago and recent interviews with participants.
I was amazed with the parallels with Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
The Nim Project was designed to replicate/test Washoe's results. But its results were used to repudiate ape language. Both experiments had tantalizing result and major procedural flaws.
Nim like Washoe could read and manipulate human emotions pretty well. But he could not control his own.
Quite true. The same way a baby conditions its mother to change its diaper, etc.
Check out Clever Hans and then ask yourself why people demand extraordinary evidence.
Personally, I don't think humans are all that special. We're ruled much more by our lower/base instincts than we like to admit. Most of what appears to ourselves like free will appears (from research) to be post-hoc rationalization rather than actual free will.
HAND.
Have Dr. Sbaitso read a hex dump of your backups to your parrot an let him go. You'll have redundant backups forever.
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I had a cat that would do that, but only while I was trying to sleep. She would jump up on my chest, drop a jingly cat toy and bat at my face until I threw it for her. If I was dumb enough to throw it, she would repeat the process until I eventually tired of it and stashed the toy in my nightstand.
This is especially important for animals like cats. For example, I could tell my cat I wanted to roughly play by turning by body sideways, puffing my body, and slowly progressing toward him. Oddly enough, this is the same language they use with each other and what he used with me. Its funny as hell for a human to do, but it communicates everything to a cat.
Ha! Me too! Unfortunately, I have nothing on my cat's version of it, which is to pop like a piece of popcorn in the air to about chest level and let out this horrendous "barking" sound that he could only have learned because he was the "tester cat" for dogs at the pound for a while. It's downright demonic, but he sure didn't learn that from me, and he's sure trying to communicate (chase me, or get the laser, or wtf have I been ignored all day?)
We need to know this. If that's the case, the two can become symbionts, and I don't have to hire someone when I go on vacation. Parrot orders the dog around, so he's getting fed and watered, and the dog can let itself out. Exercise? We just repeat eclectus's parrot's method, 40 times daily.
One of our cats likes to play fetch - usually with something like a rubber band - but when she tires of returning the toy to me she will drop it in my wife's lap as if to say "Your turn now". The other one is bone lazy and likes nothing more than to sit on my shoulder, like a parrot (there! I got back on topic.)
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my cat appears to understand quite a lot of verbal communication and has her own tone and pitched responses depending on what i'm trying to communicate.
normally, when i say "you've already been fed" she has a sulky meow and looks away from me.
she also has a very specific meow when she greets me, to when she wants to play, when she is hungry, and when she is letting me know she is lying in the middle of the floor so i don't step on her by accident (as in, if i'm not looking, i can tell she is in the middle of the floor by the tone she uses, as its very different to the typical greeting).
most cats i've had communicate through body language, this is the first cat that doesn't bother with body language and just vocalists what she wants 90% of the time.
Neither Washoe nor any other non-human primate has learnt sign language in any meaningful way -- not anything that stands up to a bit of critical review. They were certainly smart -- smart enough to learn "If I mimic enough of these signs eventually someone will give me a banana". They were also followed around by credulous 'researchers' who were eager to interpret any hand wave as highly significant, and who in fact so credulous that they didn't notice that most of the time the primates were simply mimicking back to them a gesture that they had just made.
If you want an assessment of how close they were to using sign language, ask someone for whom sign language is a first language to take a look. Without exception, native signers are unimpressed.
As far as parrots go, they're not learning to talk, or learning words -- they're learning to imitate sounds. There's no difference, as far as the parrot is concerned, between "polly want a cracker" and a squawk.
There are lyrebirds near where I live which have learnt to make laser sounds from when there was a laser skirmish being run in the bush. Hearing them make laser sounds at each other is amusing, but no-one ever suggests that they have learnt to play laser skirmish from humans and therefore lyrebirds must have the same game-playing abilities as humans.
I met someone once who had a cockatiel that talked, and when they got a new bird (a parakeet), they came to find that the cockatiel had taught the parakeet to talk.
As far as humans teaching parrots, I found a fascinating way of getting them to learn well is a three-way teaching model.
It's called the Model/Rival technique where the teacher (model) teaches another person (rival) in front of the bird, and the bird learns very fast.
I count eight at least. http://www.mtv.com/shows/jersey_shore/season_4/cast.jhtml
Someone should teach a few of them, and after let them go, to say: "we come in peace" and "bring me to your leader". :)
Oh dear. I really hope parrots that swear like Rude Ruby never escape. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJgfAle6TdY&feature=related As a matter of fact this bird had escaped once and was insulting people out and about, hence the owner found his parrot again. Who says swearing is no good for you ?
I own a grey and have been closely monitoring and researching them for awhile now. Some challenge that they are merely simple birds with amusing mimic capabilities however what is discounted is their highly intelligent behavior developed from their unique evolutionary situations. In the wild monkeys try to steal thier eggs so they learn combinations of shrieking tailored to scare a particular monkey away. I see this behavior with my grey telling my dog to "get down" or "leave it" when he starts sniffing around his cage. They spend a lot of time around watering holes foraging and such. they are able to locate threats from reflections in the water and indicate they can identify their own reflection. Dogs do not have this cognitive ability. Further they are experts at cracking complicated nuts making them incredible puzzle solvers. I have given strange nuts and other puzzles to my bird before and noticed him slowly unravelling and breaking it down. They love to tear things apart. Mine has even figured out how to open his lock and roam free around the house.
Could be worse. I knew a woman whose parrot would imitate the sound of the front door, followed by "Honey, I'm home" (a perfect imitation of her husband.)
The parrot would also imitate the sound of a telephone ring, and sometimes someone answering it. It caused much confusion in the household.
Australia has an amazing population of parrot species sociable birds and extremely entertaining to watch, sometimes I think they are putting a show on or just showing off. Even wild ones are easy to make friends with they are an australian favourite even though they tend to chew through just about anything (that beak could sever a finger quite efficiently) that they feel like. It's amazing just how sentient these birds are.
Probably the funniest thing to do is to give one of these guys an unshelled macadamia. They can smell how good the nut is but it's really hard for them to break it. Obviously if they learn to talk they would only ask for something to eat.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
youtube! please!
Well, being a cat, he never does it when I want him to. However, not wanting to disappoint, here's a video of him feeding himself.
haha.. that's great, thanks! The most interesting thing my cat does is stare directly at a wall from about 2 inches away.. for hours.
...but wait until this happens with man-birds!
They wore what?