Irene Pepperberg is noted for her studies in animal cognition particularly in relation to parrots.
Irene Pepperberg is a professor at the University of Arizona, currently (2003) a visiting fellow at the MIT media lab in Boston, MA. She is well known for her comparative studies into the cognitive fundamentals of language and communication, and was one of the first to try to extend work on language learning in animals other than humans (exemplified by the Washoe project) to a bird species.
Although parrots have long been known for their capacities in vocal mimicry, Pepperberg set out to show that their vocal behaviour could have the characteristics of human language. She worked intensively with a single African Grey Parrot, Alex, and reported that he acquired a large vocabulary and used it in a sophisticated way, which is often described as like that of two year old child. Pepperberg and her colleagues have sought to show that Alex can differentiate meaning and syntax, so that his use of vocal communication is unlike the relatively inflexible forms of "instinctive" communication that are widespread in the animal kingdom.
Although such results are always likely to be controversial, and working intensively with a single animal always incurs the risk of Clever Hans effects, Pepperberg's work has strengthened the argument that humans do not hold the monopoly on the complex or semicomplex use of abstract communication.
From work with the single subject Alex, Pepperberg and her colleagues have gone on to study additional African Grey Parrots, and also parrots of other species. A final evaluation of the importance of her work will probably depend on the success of these attempts to generalise it to other individuals.
Irene Pepperberg is also active in wildlife conservation, especially in relation to parrots. She is currently studing the differences in avian and mammiallian brain function.
