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Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence--and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process |  | Author: Irene Pepperberg
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $13.99
Buy New: $7.25
as of 11/22/2009 01:25 MST details
You Save: $6.74 (48%)
New (31) Used (11) from $7.25
Seller: catsontheriver
Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 2824
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0061673986
Dewey Decimal Number: 636.68650929
EAN: 9780061673986
ASIN: 0061673986
Publication Date: September 1, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
"You be good. I love you," were Alex's final words to his owner, research scientist Irene Pepperberg, before his premature death at age thirty-one on September 6, 2007. An African Grey parrot, Alex had a brain the size of a shelled walnut, yet he could add, sound out words, understand concepts like bigger, smaller, more, fewer, and none, and he disproved the widely accepted idea that birds possess no potential for language or anything remotely comparable to human intelligence. Alex & Me is the remarkable true account of an amazing, irascible parrot and his best friend who stayed together through thick and thin for thirty years—the astonishing, moving, and unforgettable story of a landmark scientific achievement and a beautiful relationship.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 8
 Alex and Me November 19, 2009
Doc' Abbie (Miami, NM USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Alex and Irene have been supremely instrumental in opening our eyes to the folly of our human-centric point of view. Many other species are smart enough to learn to understand and communicate with us, but we are rarely smart enough or engaged enough to understand and communicate with them.
 Bridget's Review November 10, 2009
bridget3420
Alex, an African Grey parrot, died at the ripe old age of 31. His brain may be small but he was an extremely intelligent creature. Irene loved her best friend Alex and was devastated when he passed away. This book shows that you don't have to be human to steal a humans heart.
I adore my dogs and I have a special connection with them that can never be broken. I know about the love Irene felt for Alex and she told her story beautifully.
LET'S HEAR IT FOR BIRDBRAINS! November 9, 2009
David Keymer (Modesto CA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Click on YouTube and type in "Alex the Parrot," and there it is: the famous PBS interview of Alan Alda interviewing Alex the parrot and his scientist-trainer Irene M. Pepperberg. In groundbreaking studies of a Grey parrot's reasoning ability (reported in The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrots (Harvard, 2000), Dr. Pepperberg proved to scientific standards that a little African Grey parrot, ten inches tall and with a brain the size of a peeled walnut, could not only count but add and subtract , could not only identify objects by color, size and nature (key, spoon, etc.) but identify mixed categories (all the shapes that are green, adding TOGETHER the green cars and green keys, and ignoring the blue keys and blue cars), could differentiate `more' and `less', and developed on its own a concept that was a simplified version of zero. Alex and Me, selected by the New York Times as a Notable Book of the Year in 2008, is now available in paperback. Get it and read it. It tells her story as much as Alex's: the fight she had to win funding and scientific acceptance. The received wisdom of the day was that animals did not reason; they simply parroted, or read subtle cues from their handlers --the "Clever Hans" syndrome, after a calculating horse in the late 1800s who 'added,' pawing the ground with his foot: it was discovered that his handler unknowingly signaled to him when the right total was reached. And certainly, if an animal could reason, it wouldn't be a bird. Pepperberg reasoned that animal learning experiences were conducted in a most unnatural way, by operant conditioning: starve the rat or pigeon, shove it on a box with no distracting stimuli, reward it if it pressed the right lever and punish it if it didn't. She reasoned that social animals, animals that live in packs or groups, would learn best if communicated with and socialized with. Using an alternative technique called model/rival training, developed by a German scientist Dietmar Todt, Pepperberg and an assistant would model the behavior (and the word and concept) they were trying to teach Alex. Alex would watch them name (out loud) an object that appealed to him (a piece of wood, for instance). When one of them repeated the trainer's word, she was handed the piece of wood and could `play' with it for a minute. Then the trainer and the assistant reversed roles and the assistant asked Dr. Pepperberg to name the object. When she said the right word, the assistant handed the object to her. When she said the wrong word, she was chastised. Greys are the most verbal of all parrots: using a Grey parrot allowed Pepperberg to talk to Alex about what Alex was doing. Alex died suddenly in 2007. He was thirty-=one years old, little over half the lifespan of a healthy Grey. The autopsy showed that he had had an undetected heart arrhythmia. But before he died, Alex, and his two companion Greys in Dr. Pepperberg's lab, showed conclusively that being a birdbrain isn't always an insult.
(A side benefit of this fascinating book is reading about Dr. Pepperberg. Her story is amazing, and heartening. She is one tough lady, and I mean that as a compliment!]
 Not An Easy Read, Dry, More Scientific November 3, 2009
Caroljane (Florida)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I recently purchased a book by this same title from Amazon published in 2008. My purchase was based on the great reviews. The cover was different - had scientist and bird on top half. I'm an avid reader and was looking for a wonderful story. This book is very dry, very scientific... and yet has some few touching moments. It is a good story, just not the book I was looking forward to reading.
alex & me October 26, 2009
Lowreetha Johnson
I was hooked from the very first chapter. Irene Pepperberg keeps you interested from the beginning to the end. I fell in love with Alex. What an amazing bird! I came away with a lot more respect for the intelligence of a parrot. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone, bird lover or not.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 8
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