Interesting program. Some of the points seemed to be a stretch, especially =
the part about shape discrimination.
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People who study animals in the field have a difficult task. My work with a=
talking bird is more direct, because we know the meaning for the words spo=
ken from our language. Perception is the problem with talking birds (i.e., =
a clip of a starling speaking).
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Through language, I have evidence that a parrot-like bird thinks about thin=
gs and that she is a conscious being. This is a difficult task through mean=
s other than using a common language to "look inside the mind of another cr=
eature."
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During the next semester, I am linking with a local university to study spe=
ech perception or lack thereof with students. Eventually we hope to train o=
thers how to listen to bird speech, because at present it would seem that m=
an is the weak link in the communication chain. On the other hand, don't we=
usually assume that we are more intelligent than other species? Bad assump=
tion, IMHO.
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Mike
Florida
www.ParrotSpeech.com
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