Book review: Alex & Me

Back in September the world's most famous parrot, an African Grey named Alex, died. Alex had been the subject of one of the longest-running studies in animal cognition ever performed. Irene Pepperberg, the scientist who worked with Alex, demonstrated over the course of several decades that this bird was capable of startling feats of intelligence and reasoning. Alex could distinguish independently between concepts such as color, shape, size, and number. Given a selection of triangles, circles and rectangles of various colors and materials, Alex could answer complex questions such as "what shape is the red wood?" or "how many shapes are blue?" Dr. Pepperberg's work with Alex has become one of the most frequently cited and best-known experiments in animal-human communication.

All of which brings us to Dr. Pepperberg's new book, Alex & Me, a memoir of her thirty-some years working with Alex. This is a charming book. The story is amazing and often touching, and it's hard not to laugh at some of the anecdotes contained within. But it is ultimately marred by a lack of narrative depth.

Even Alex's most impressive moments are sketched out in dull declaratives that barely stimulate the imagination. These scenes have the potential to be so much more than what we see on the page. As it is, Dr. Pepperberg simply lists the various things that occurred, tosses in a cutesy interjection like "That's my Alex!" or "Smart bird!", and moves on. The stories are still great fun to read, though, simply because the events themselves, however presented, are so remarkable.

Pepperberg mentions many times the scientific objections that were raised to her work. Most frequent was the claim that Alex did not understand the reasoning behind his answers, that he simply relied on various verbal or nonverbal cues to pick the correct word. Pepperberg faced this criticism constantly, even when Alex's increasing abilities seemed too great to deny. When you read anecdotally of all the things that Alex accomplished, it seems amazing that these denials still persist.

Yet if this book is at all representative of Pepperberg's style of scientific argument, then I can sympathize at least partially with her critics. She has an unfortunate tendency to make strong statements without presenting any evidence or reasoning; and she will often assign motives or thoughts to her opponents without fully backing them up. She states that her difficulty in joining the faculty at the University of Arizona was due at least in part to "resentment" of Alex's increasing media profile. "Jealousy is corrosive," she notes. This seems rather likely, but it is for that very reason that I wonder why she could not provide even one piece of anecdotal evidence. This is a fairly serious charge to level against her academic colleagues and it would be unfair to do so speculatively.

In a similar vein, she tells of several instances when Alex was being obstinate and giving wrong answers delberately to amuse himself. I do not doubt for a moment that Pepperberg had good reason to believe that this was the case. But if so, I would have liked to hear more about her reasoning. What were those subtle cues, to which she had become so finely attuned, that tipped her off? We are not told, and so we are left noting how convenient it seems that whenever Alex gives a wrong answer, it's intentional.

Let me reemphasize that I am not trying to refute Dr. Pepperberg's studies. I mean simply to say that with a little more attentional to detail, she could have made her story so very much more convincing. I am and have long been an enthusiastic Alex fan, but again it is for this very reason that I wish Alex & Me were a more satisfying memoir. Those who have followed Alex over the years, though, will certainly find this book heartwarming and diverting.