Evaluation of Avian Cognitive Abilities

鸟类认知能力的评估

• 批准号: 9603803
• 负责人: Irene Pepperberg
• 金额: $ 15.14万
• 依托单位: University of Arizona
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1997
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1997-05-01 至 2000-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9603803&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Evaluation; Avian; Cognitive; Abilities

Pepperberg 9603803 The PI's goals are to examine the cognitive and communicative capacities of Grey parrots. Results from these studies will provide insights into the evolution of intelligence, how input affects learning, and comparative neurobiology and anatomy. (1) Comparisons with other "language"-trained animals (e.g., on representational abilities and how well problem-solving skills are transferred to new contexts) will demonstrate the extent to which intelligence has evolved (independently) in mammals and birds: It is not yet known, for example, if labels acquired by Grey parrots represent board or narrow (specific) concepts: Do parrots that, for example, label a particular sound pattern as "3" understand that this concept of "threeness" extends to physical entities? The PI will examine how well such transfer occurs without training. In addition, can a bird extend concepts, such as bigger/smaller, that are learned in one context (e.g., mass) to respond to questions in another context (e.g., ordinality of number)? The experiments will provide information about parrots' comprehension of such concepts and data for cross- species comparisons. (2) Data on how various aspects of input affect learning and the extent of parrots' communicative abilities may enable us to improve programs for other interspecies communication projects and possibly for dysfunctional humans: Parrots that are taught a human- based code can undergo experimental manipulations to determine optimal conditions for learning the code; these conditions may be extended to other species. The experiments focus on the extent to which acquisition is affected by (a) species identity of the trainer and (b) the amount of reference, functionality, and social interaction in the training input. (3) Showing how parrots, with brains and vocal tracts so unlike those humans, acquire meaningful English speech provides comparative data on neuroanatomical correlates of cognition and on how differen t anatomical structures produce similar sounding utterances. Differences exist in psittacine and human neural and auditory mechanisms, yet speech patterns are mutually comprehensible; my data should provide insights into speech perception and information processing. Parrots and humans differ with respect to lungs, bronchi, trachea, nasal cavity, larynx, and tongue, and parrots uniquely use air-sacs and a syrinx whereas humans uniquely use lips and teeth; I am therefore studying alternative mechanisms for producing human speech. (4) Finally, elucidating the intelligence of Greys may encourage conservation efforts for all psittacids.

Pepperberg 9603803 PI 的目标是检查灰鹦鹉的认知和交流能力。 这些研究的结果将提供对智力进化、输入如何影响学习以及比较神经生物学和解剖学的见解。 (1) 与其他受过“语言”训练的动物的比较（例如，表征能力以及解决问题的技能转移到新环境的能力）将证明哺乳动物和鸟类的智力（独立）进化的程度：例如，尚不清楚灰鹦鹉获得的标签是否代表板或狭窄（特定）概念：例如，将特定声音模式标记为“3”的鹦鹉是否理解这一概念 “三位一体”扩展到物理实体？ PI 将在未经培训的情况下检查这种转移的效果如何。 此外，鸟类能否扩展在一种环境（例如质量）中学到的概念（例如更大/更小）来回答另一种环境中的问题（例如数字的序数）？ 这些实验将提供有关鹦鹉对这些概念的理解的信息以及用于跨物种比较的数据。 (2) 关于输入的各个方面如何影响学习以及鹦鹉的交流能力程度的数据可能使我们能够改进其他跨物种交流项目以及可能的功能障碍人类的程序：被教导基于人类的代码的鹦鹉可以进行实验操作以确定学习代码的最佳条件；这些条件可能会扩展到其他物种。 实验重点关注（a）训练者的物种身份和（b）训练输入中的参考量、功能和社交互动对习得的影响程度。 (3) 展示大脑和声道与人类截然不同的鹦鹉如何获得有意义的英语语音，提供有关认知的神经解剖学相关性以及不同解剖结构如何产生相似发音的话语的比较数据。鹦鹉热和人类的神经和听觉机制存在差异，但言语模式是可以相互理解的； 我的数据应该提供对语音感知和信息处理的见解。 鹦鹉和人类在肺、支气管、气管、鼻腔、喉和舌头方面有所不同，鹦鹉独特地使用气囊和鸣管，而人类独特地使用嘴唇和牙齿；因此，我正在研究产生人类语音的替代机制。 (4) 最后，阐明小灰人的智力可能会鼓励对所有鹦鹉螺的保护工作。