Parrots!

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- osmanthus
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Parrots!
OP - February 26, 2012, 12:57 AM

Alex the parrot's last experiment shows his mathematical genius

This is pretty amazing stuff.

Quote
Even in death, the world's most accomplished parrot continues to amaze. The final experiments involving Alex, a grey parrot (Psittacus eithacus) trained to count objects, have just been published.

They show that Alex could accurately add together Arabic numerals to a sum of eight and three sets of objects, putting his mathematical abilities on par with (and maybe beyond) those of chimpanzees and other non-human primates.

And:

Quote
In 12 trials of the Arabic numeral addition task, when asked "How many total?" he indicated the correct sum 9 times, demonstrating that 3 + 4 is 7, 4 + 2 is 6, 4 + 4 is 8 and so on. When presented sequentially with three sets of objects hidden under three cups, and asked how many, Alex offered the correct answer eight out of 10 times. He determined, for instance, that one, two and one jelly beans adds up to four.

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Re: Parrots!
Reply #1 - February 26, 2012, 01:21 AM

I love Alex the parrot

African greys are very intelligent, they're amazing
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Re: Parrots!
Reply #2 - February 26, 2012, 02:56 AM

Quote from: osmanthus on February 26, 2012, 12:57 AM

Alex the parrot's last experiment shows his mathematical genius

This is pretty amazing stuff.

And:

Not a bid deal, Here is more amazing stuff ...

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Re: Parrots!
Reply #3 - February 26, 2012, 03:35 AM

I'm curious how they "trained" the parrot to act mathematically. As in, I am not sure if the parrot actually understands what he is doing, or has been trained that when presented with, say, three rocks, he is trained to point to the number 3. (or when presented with a group of two rocks and 3 rocks he points to the 5 numeral) Basically, my point is it's hard to be sure if one is just reacting to certain inputs of stimuli with certain trained outputs, or mathematical understanding is actually occurring.
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Re: Parrots!
Reply #4 - February 26, 2012, 04:20 AM

Time to stop calling stupid people birdbrains.

Quote from: zoomi on February 26, 2012, 03:35 AM
I'm curious how they "trained" the parrot to act mathematically. As in, I am not sure if the parrot actually understands what he is doing, or has been trained that when presented with, say, three rocks, he is trained to point to the number 3. (or when presented with a group of two rocks and 3 rocks he points to the 5 numeral) Basically, my point is it's hard to be sure if one is just reacting to certain inputs of stimuli with certain trained outputs, or mathematical understanding is actually occurring.

See this video, at 6:20 they explain how he remembered the numbers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=O_Fpad20Zbk#t=368s

I don't know how he learned the math though.
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Re: Parrots!
Reply #5 - February 26, 2012, 11:26 AM

Quote from: zoomi on February 26, 2012, 03:35 AM
Basically, my point is it's hard to be sure if one is just reacting to certain inputs of stimuli with certain trained outputs, or mathematical understanding is actually occurring.

The researchers took measures to avoid such a problem.

From the paper:

Quote
Individuals taught number labels in consecutive order might
use this information to learn that each successive label represents
one more item than the one before it and form a
number line, thereby simplifying the acquisition of labels
for larger quantities. Such a procedure was avoided to ensure
that Alex was building his concept of number solely by
forming one-to-one associations between specific quantities
and their respective number labels.

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Re: Parrots!
Reply #6 - February 26, 2012, 11:31 AM

This is pretty awesome, I like parrots.

Although I often wonder if they taste like chicken, the super-intelligent ones might be less tasty though.

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Re: Parrots!
Reply #7 - February 26, 2012, 01:06 PM

Quote from: zoomi on February 26, 2012, 03:35 AM
I'm curious how they "trained" the parrot to act mathematically. As in, I am not sure if the parrot actually understands what he is doing, or has been trained that when presented with, say, three rocks, he is trained to point to the number 3. (or when presented with a group of two rocks and 3 rocks he points to the 5 numeral) Basically, my point is it's hard to be sure if one is just reacting to certain inputs of stimuli with certain trained outputs, or mathematical understanding is actually occurring.

I'm curious if that is any different to how we do math
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Re: Parrots!
Reply #8 - February 26, 2012, 02:05 PM

I have 2 african grey parrots and yes they truly are amazing birds. One of mine is more intelligent than the other one, markedly so.

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Re: Parrots!
Reply #9 - February 27, 2012, 07:34 AM

Quote from: Prince Spinoza on February 26, 2012, 01:06 PM
I'm curious if that is any different to how we do math

Good point.

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