The nothingness of a parrot named Alex

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Researchers explore whether parrot has concept of zero

 

A bird may have hit on a concept that eluded mathematicians for

centuries—possibly during a temper tantrum.

 

 

Special to World Science

 

Researchers are exploring whether a parrot has developed a numerical

concept that mathematicians failed to grasp for centuries: zero.

 

Oddly, it seems he may have achieved the feat during a temper

tantrum, the scientists say.

 

Although zero is an obvious notion to most of us, it wasn't to people

long ago. Scholars say it came into widespread use in the West only

in the 1600s; India had it about a millennium earlier.

 

Yet Alex, a 28-year-old Grey parrot, recently began—unprompted—using

the word " none " to describe an absence of quantity, according to

researchers at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.

 

Alex thus possesses a " zero-like concept, " wrote the scientists.

 

Years earlier, Alex had been taught another meaning of " none, " as a

lack of information, they added. But his feat was to extend the

concept to a context involving numbers, during a test of his counting

skills.

 

The researchers, Irene Pepperberg and Jesse Gordon, described the

findings in the May issue of The Journal of Comparative Psychology, a

research journal.

 

Alex's apparent insight into nothingness doesn't necessarily extend

to other arithmetical talents, the researchers noted: the researchers

found these to lag in some respects behind those of young human

children.

 

The scientists also said it will take further study to determine

whether Alex—who has been the subject of intelligence and

communication tests throughout his life—really understands zero.

 

Zero and none " are not identical, " Pepperberg wrote in a recent

email. But since Alex never learned " zero, " the researchers said,

it's impressive that he started using a word he knew to denote

something like it: an absence of a quantity.

 

Also unclear, though, was whether by " none " he meant no colors, no

objects or something else.

 

" We just started yet another series of experiments to see if he can

easily be trained to understand that `none' can be used for true

zero, " Pepperberg said via email. It looks like he can, she added,

but it's " far too early to make serious claims. "

 

Chimps and possibly squirrel monkeys show some understanding of zero,

but only after training, the researchers said. So Alex's feat is the

first time this has been documented in a bird, " and the first time it

occurred spontaneously, " Pepperberg said via email.

 

But the achievement didn't come without a few bumps.

 

The story began when researchers started testing Alex to see whether

he understood small numbers, between one and six. Zero wasn't

expected of him. The researchers would lay out an array of objects of

different colors and sizes, and asked questions such as " what color

four? " — meaning which color are the objects of which there are four.

 

Alex performed well on this, with no training, for dozens of trials,

the researchers recounted. But then he balked. Alex started ignoring

questions, or giving wrong answers, seemingly deliberately. He seemed

to enjoy the experimenters' frustrated reactions, they said.

 

There was evidence, they added, that his stubbornness stemmed from

boredom with the rewards he had been getting for right answers. The

researchers found some more interesting toys to give as rewards.

After two weeks of obstructionism, Alex grudgingly returned to the

game, though he occasionally seemed to lapse back.

 

One of these apparent lapses occurred one day when an experimenter

asked Alex " what color three? " Laid out before Alex were sets of two,

three and six objects, each set differently colored.

 

Alex insisted on responding: " five. " This made no sense given that

the answer was supposed to be a color.

 

After several tries the experimenter gave up and said: " OK, Alex,

tell me: what color five? "

 

" None, " the bird replied. This was correct, in that there was no

color that graced exactly five of the objects. The researchers went

on to incorporate " none " into future trials, and Alex consistently

used the word correctly, they said.

 

" We cannot determine what cognitive process led to this behavior, "

the researchers wrote. " We suggest only that his action, occurring

soon after a period of noncompliance, resulted from a lack of

interest in the given task and was a possible attempt to make the

procedure more challenging. "

 

In the future, the researchers said they want to test Alex for his

ability to add and subtract small quantities, including possibly

zero.

 

As they investigate whether Alex really understands zero, they will

also have to untangle the meanings of " none " and " zero. "

 

Merriam-Webster's online dictionary defines zero as follows: " the

arithmetical symbol… denoting the absence of all magnitude or

quantity, " or " the number between the set of all negative numbers and

the set of all positive numbers. " The entry continues with several

more definitions.

 

By contrast, the dictionary defines " none " as not any, not one,

nobody, not any such thing or person, no part, or nothing.

 

Of course, these words may well mean different things to the authors

of a dictionary, and to a parrot.

 

A related question is the history of both words. " None " seems to be

older than " zero. "

 

Zero was common in the West only from the 1600s on, though similar

concepts appeared earlier in fits and starts, according to J.J.

O'Connor of the University of St. Andrews in St. Andrews, Scotland.

 

In pre-zero times, O'Connor wrote in an online essay, some

mathematicians tied themselves in knots to solve problems that would

have been much easier with a zero. But ancient peoples as a whole

probably didn't think of it because they didn't need it: " If ancient

peoples solved a problem about how many horses a farmer needed, " he

wrote, " then the problem was not going to have 0 or –23 as an answer. "

 

" None " is considerably older than " zero " in Western cultures. It's

related to a neinn—an early medieval Viking word—and is similar to

the still older Latin word noenum, meaning " not one, " according to

the Online Etymology Dictionary.

 

Whatever the etymological roots of Alex's utterances, his performance

has its limitations, the researchers said. Several years ago, they

tried to teach him to recite a number line by presenting written

numerals on their own, without reference to groups of items. Alex

performed rather poorly. Schoolchildren, by contrast, can usually

learn this fairly easily.

 

Thus Alex's apparent insight into zero doesn't necessarily reflect

across-the-board mathematical brilliance. Alex's abilities might

parallel those of children " who have trouble learning language and

counting skills, " the researchers wrote.

 

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