The Alex studies

"Can a parrot understand complex concepts and mean what it says? Experiments performed primarily on pigeons in Skinner boxes demonstrated capacities inferior to those of mammals; these results were thought to reflect the capacities of all birds, despite evidence suggesting that species such as jays, crows, and parrots might be capable of more impressive cognitive feats.". "Twenty years ago Irene Pepperberg set out to discover whether the results of the pigeon studies necessarily meant that other birds - particularly the large-brained, highly social parrots - were incapable of mastering complex cognitive concepts and the rudiments of referential speech. Her investigation and the bird at its center - a male Grey parrot named Alex - have since become almost as well known as primate studies and their subjects and no less a topic of fierce debate in the field of animal cognition. This book represents the long-awaited synthesis of the studies constituting one of the landmark experiments in modern comparative psychology."--BOOK JACKET.