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- [00:00]
Intuit TurboTax
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Apple
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Dan Kennedy
Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy and the Moth features true stories told live without notes. All stories from the podcast are taken from our ongoing storytelling series in New York, Los Angeles and from our tour shows across the country.
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Jay Allison
Visit themoth.org hi, this is Jay Allison up on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Right now we're producing our second batch of stories for the Moth Radio Hour. To hear the Moth Radio Hour on the air, contact your local public radio station and find out when they'll be airing it. We hope you like it. Thanks.
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Dan Kennedy
The story you're about to hear by Irene Pepperberg was recorded live in Boston when the moth was on the road. In 2009, we found Irene through our annual partnership that we do with the World Science Festival.
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Irene Pepperberg
Okay, so it's 1970s and I'm getting my doctorate in theoretical chemistry from Harvard and I'm watching NOVA programs on this groundbreaking work on training animals to communicate with humans, work on signing chimps in dolphin studies. And I decide that's it. I've had this epiphany. I'm going to change my whole field and do this work and I'm going to do it with a parrot. Parrots talk. They live for a long time. I thought this was the most incredible idea in the world that I'd be part of this revolution. I finish the degree, I study up everything I can in the field, I write my grant proposal, I submit it, thinking yes and no. The reviewers come back asking me what I'm smoking. The last time parrots and humans were connected, unlike apes, where we're connected pretty closely genetically, 280 million years ago. All right, you know, big, big difference. Parrots, unlike dolphins, they have this little tiny brain the size of a shelled walnut. You know, dolphins have this big brain. It makes sense to work with them. Not with a parrot. Plus, I'm working with an animal that's a pet, you know, I mean, how am I going to keep my scientific objectivity there? And plus, I'm not going to use the standard scientific techniques of the day, which means starve your animal to 80% of its normal body weight, stick it in a Skinner box and go from there. No, no, I'm going to just talk to the bird. Yeah, right. Even my then husband, who was a neurophysiologist, says, no, no, Irene, until you can stick an electrode in its head and get a P300, it's not science. And I look at him blankly because like you, I'm saying P300. What are you talking about? Okay, so I, but I'm really determined. I go out and I buy a parrot. It's a gray parrot. That's the name of the species and the color. He's a gray, different shades of gray, bright red tail. He's about this big, weighs about a pound. I name him Alex for avian learning experiment. And so I start training him by modeling system. He's learning a couple labels and I put in the grant proposal. And this time I'm really lucky. I have somebody on the panel who studies bird song who recognizes the striking parallels between the development of vocal communication in birds and humans. So I get a grant for a year. Now, most grants are for three or four years because if you get it for a year, as soon as you get the grant, you have to resubmit it and you know, you have to get some data in between there. But I figured, no, we are on our way. This is going to work. Well, it wasn't quite that simple. Alex and my life were more like the perils of Pauline than anything else. Because anytime anything great happened, there was always something that then happened to bring us back down. And it was quite a roller coaster of a life. But at the beginning we started this work and In Alex's first 10 years he learned about 50 labels for objects. He learned to label seven colors. He learned to label five shapes, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 cornered. He labeled different materials. He understood concepts. So I could show him the object. And I'd say, alex, you know, what's this? And he'd say, block. And I said, good birdie. And what color? Blue. Good boy. And what shape? Four corner. And what matter? Wood. And he combined these labels so he could identify 150 different things. This is a parrot brain size of shelled walnut. Could label about 150 different things. He learned concepts of bigger and smaller. So I could show him two things and say, what's color bigger? What color is smaller? And he'd tell me he learned. And this was really extraordinary concept of same and different. So I could show him two things and not just tell me that they were same or different, but he could tell me what about them was same or different. So I'd say, what's same? And he'd tell me, color, shape, matter, or none, if nothing were same or different. And this was pretty exciting work. And again, Alex is about 10 years old. And I'm invited to the International Primatological Congress. This is a big deal, international congress. I'm speaking in front of a thousand people and I'm the only person there who is not a primatologist. I am the one person who has been invited to talk on comparative behavior. And I'm talking about a bird. Again, brain size of shelled walnut to all these people are working with apes and orangutans and whatever. So I get up and I give my talk. At the end of my talk, one of the silver, we call them the silverback males. One of the. One of the senior, you know, senior primatologists gets up and I'm going, okay, here it comes. You know, I'm just going to get totally creamed. And he, you know, he said, well, you know, very interesting little study you did there. But you mean to tell me that your bird did something much more complicated than premax apes? And I want to say yeah, and backwards and in heels, you know, to be honest, but I say, no. And I smile, I say, no, sir, you know, that's right, sir. He did. And I'm thinking, okay. And he says, oh. And he sits down and I'm going, oh, I've done it. I've made it, you know, yay. Except, you know, I should have been, you know, drinking gallons of champagne at that point. But a couple of weeks earlier, I'd gotten this letter from National Science foundation saying, you Know what? It was a nice proposal, but we ran out of money, so no more funding. So I'm sitting there going, okay, how are we going to keep the lab going at this point? So here's Alex doing this great stuff, and we're having some troubles with the funding. And this was this, again, this was the story of our lives. So we fast forward a little bit, and it was still very hard for me to get some recognition from colleagues. Even with these successes, there was always the question of scientific objectivity. And I dealt with it by treating Alex like a colleague, the way I would treat my students. You work with them, you teach them as much as you can, you respect them, but you draw a line between the way you interact with them and the way you interact with your own children or the way you interact with your significant others to keep that scientific objectivity. And it didn't always stick. I mean, when my marriage fell apart and I was getting a divorce, and it comes down to dividing the property, and my husband says, well, you take the bird and I'll take the dog. And part of me is going, hey, cool. You know, no fights with him about the bird. But the other part of me is going, alex isn't a pet like our dog. You know, he's my scientific center. You know, how could you say this? But, you know, we're doing okay. And again, by this time, we're doing a lot of publicity. We're doing Scientific American Frontiers and discovery channel and 48 hours. And Alex is about 15, and we get an invitation to do radio from the BBC. And by this time, Alex's personality is really coming to a four, because he's learned not just to answer questions, but to label and to interact and ask me questions. And so now I've got this radio, and I'm thinking, radio. You know, I could ask him anything. And I could say, yes, good boy. Because, you know, they can't see what's going on. So I think, all right, how am I going to do this? Okay. So I start the program and I say, okay, I'm holding an orange square piece of wood, and I'm going to ask Alex some questions. So you hear my heels click, click, click as I go into the room, and I go, alex, going to ask you some questions. Going to do some work. And they go, alex, what color? Little birdie voice. No, you tell me what shape. Okay, Alex, it's four corner. Now, can you tell me what color? Tell me what matter? Okay, Alex, it's wood. Can you tell me what color? No. How Many Alex, there's one toy here. And you know, part of me again is going, oh, this is so cool. He's not just acting like a little robot. I mean, he's interacting with me, he's talking with me. The other part of me is going, but they really want to hear him answer some questions. So I'm going, alex, come on, what color? And he goes, no, tell me what shape. And I go, okay, Alex, time out. You're misbehaving. And you hear my heels as I start to walk out the door, giving him a time out. And then comes a little birdie voice. I'm sorry, come here, Orange. So obviously I treated every Alec's like a colleague, but he didn't necessarily treat me like a colleague. And again, we had some ups, we had some downs. I was at Arizona at that point. We left Arizona for a number of reasons. We got a gig at the Media Lab at mit. Those of you who you're local, you know what that is big time. I'm hired for a temporary position that could be extended to do use the bird as a model for intelligent learning systems. But once I'm there and I start looking at all the gizmos and whatever they have, I start developing for the sponsors animal human communication systems to enrich the birds lives all these animals. Interpet Explorer web browsers for parrots, things like that. And those of you who know the media Lab know that the sponsors come who have given us all this money to do these things, come twice a year to see what we've done with their money. Well, word had gotten out that there was a live bird and they wanted to see Alex. And they come through in waves, five to seven minutes. And I was setting up the inter pet thing and no, no, no, no. We want to see Alex do his phonemes. I'm going, oh, whatever you guys want, you know, I'll do it. Phonemes. What we were doing was showing him refrigerator letters, the things you show your kids to have him sound out the letters in the hope that somewhere down the road we could put the letters together and he could maybe sound out a label to see if he understood what these sounds meant. Okay, so, but he's at this very early stage and the task at this point, we put all the letters on a tray, they're different colors and you know, we ask Alex what color is, you know, s. And he goes, blue. Good birdie. Want a nut? Okay, Alex, you can't have a nut. We've only got these people for five minutes. You know, let's do another thing. Okay, you know what sound is green?
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Jay Allison
Sh.
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Irene Pepperberg
Good birdie. Wanna nut. Wait, wait. So we do this several times, and each time he's getting more and more upset because he's not getting his reward. And finally, after about four or five times, he looks at me and goes, what nut? N. Uh, T. And in. Typical Alex, you know, I'm thinking, okay, he's telling me, stupid. Do I have to spell it for you? But the other part of it is, you know, I'm thinking he's gone light years ahead of us because N and T were on the tray, but ah was not. So he had figured out himself how to split the words apart into the sounds and use them. And this. This was the type of thing that was going on. So, again, again, after all of these high points, you know, the media lab gig falls apart. I'm actually on unemployment for a while. I get a Radcliffe fellowship to help things through. But to keep the lab going, I'm going to bird clubs every other weekend, literally, to raise money. I have to raise $100,000 a year to keep the lab going. And it's getting more and more crazy, and we're trying to figure out what's going on. And my colleagues at Harvard have this great idea that Alex has been so interactive and fun. Maybe we should start looking at how he sees the world. Literally. Can he do optical illusions? So we put together a grant, and of course, it's rejected the first time. We fix it up, we resubmit it, and it's September 2001, and the grant is approved and funded. Okay, not for the three years, of course, that we asked for, but for a year. So I'm really excited because, you know, I'm thinking history. Okay, again, just like before, we had some data. I knew I could resubmit it, everything would be fine, things are turning around. And a little bit later that week, I'm sitting at my desk eating breakfast, which I do. Emails are coming in from Europe and Japan, and one comes in from Europe. Italk has been funded. Yay. Okay? It's a big European consortium. Millions of euros coming through for this. I'm a consultant, no real money, but they send me to Europe once a year, again to use Alex as a model for intelligent learning systems. And I'm thinking, again, yes, justification of our work. We're on an upswing. I'm so excited. Get a second cup of coffee, sit down. And there's another email with the tag sad news from the head vet at Brandeis, where the birds are And I'm thinking, okay, you know, some technician, there might be a problem, you know, in the family, somebody's sick, we're going to get flowers. It's. It's a standard thing. And I open this email, but it's not exactly bad attack, except that one found a dead parrot in the back left hand corner of the room. And I freeze and I'm going, this, this, this is not true. It can't be. I mean, this is. This is a nightmare, right? I'm going to wake up. But I call Brandeis and know Alex has passed in the night. And I go into complete shock because this is a bird. He's now 30 years old. We're supposed to have another 20 years here. And I can't believe it. I mean, obviously I'm not functioning. I kept a diary, but I can't, you know, it's hard to even talk about it now, but. So over the weekend, friends come up. They drive from Washington to be there with me to make sure I'm fed, to. To roll me into bed so I won't sleep, but to get some rest. Other friends locally are taking care of me, too. My board of directors from the foundation sets up an obituary because I can't. I mean, I'm just totally out of it. I'm like walking into walls. And Monday morning comes and I call the Brandeis PR folks, the folks I've been working with for all these years, because every time Alex had done something cool, the media would pick up on it and they would, you know, there'd be this little thing of stuff, and we'd do some interviews. And so I call them and Laura, my friend there, says, irene, I'll put this out, but, you know, this is a bird. I mean, it's not going to get any traction, but I'll put it out. I say, fine, whatever. And by the time I drive the 40 minutes from my house to Brandeis, my cell phone is ringing off the hook. My lab manager's cell phone's ringing off the hook. The lab phone is ringing off the hook. We're being asked for interviews all over the world. And I'm, you know, interview mode, I can handle. I've done this for years. Pick up phone, you know, close eyes, answer questions as they come, hang up phone, take the next interview. Fine. That I can deal with. And I'm doing this for a week. Meanwhile, emails are pouring in. 3,000 to my own account. Boxes and boxes of letters are coming from people all over the world. Alex gets three articles in the New York Times, an obituary in the Economist. I mean, you know, yeah, world leaders, not a parrot. And I'm still in total shock. It's just nothing's coming through. And finally I get this big box of letters, but there's a little box inside and I open it up and it's from grade school class. And the week before Alex died, the teacher had brought her gray parrot into the classroom to teach them about animal intelligence and conservation issues. And when the kids learned about Alex's death, they said they all wanted to write sympathy notes. So they all drew pictures of Alex and then little notes to me. And I'm opening one of these and it's from a little boy. And he says, I know how you feel. My grandma died this summer and someday your heart will heal. And that's when all these barriers that I had put up to keep Alex on the other side of my emotions so I could do the science, it came through that there wasn't going to be any more science. Alex was gone. And all these emotions broke through and I realized I had lost the most important being in my life. Thank you.
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Dan Kennedy
Irene Pepperberg, an adjunct associate professor at Brandeis University and research associate and lecturer at Harvard, studies cognition and communication in gray parrots. Her book Alex and Me, a New York Times bestseller, describes life with her most famous subject. The Moth is a non profit organization. So consider supporting our free podcast by going to our podcast contribution page or by becoming a moth member and you can do that@themost.org Also this year's World Science Festival is going to run June 6th through 12th. And for more information on all events, including our co production at Webster hall, please visit worldsciencefestival.com Our podcast host, Dan.
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Intuit TurboTax
Kennedy, is the author of the book Rock an Office Power Ballad.
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Irene Pepperberg
Learn more@rockonthebook.com thanks to all of you.
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Dan Kennedy
For listening and we hope you have a story worthy week. Podcast audio production by Paul Ruest at the Argo Studios in New York. Podcast hosting by PRX Public Radio Exchange helping make public radio more public@prx.org.