patdbunny wrote:The breeder greys play Marco Polo with us. We use Marco/Polo to locate each other in the house. Sometimes they answer "Polo". Sometimes they say "Marco" and we'll respond to them w/ "Polo".
patdbunny wrote:The breeder greys play Marco Polo with us. We use Marco/Polo to locate each other in the house. Sometimes they answer "Polo". Sometimes they say "Marco" and we'll respond to them w/ "Polo".
entrancedbymyGCC wrote:Context is one thing, meaning another. For example "Stop it!" is a set of sounds that could be associated with a certain degree of agitation/conflict and used in that situation. Irene Pepperberg felt that Alex using "I'm sorry" was like this -- he new it was a set of sounds that are made in a situation where people are unhappy and that it could defuse the situation. That doesn't mean he truly meant he was sorry in the way a person using language would. I think there is a progression: mimicry -> context/labeling -> meaning. Ours seem to have some sense of context and use words and phrases consistently in certain situations, but neither uses labels and I would hesitate to to jump to a conclusion about meaning. But I'm a trained skeptic...
Vikki wrote:The night I brought Sebastian, my Harlequin, home from the rescue I had been walking around with him on my arm and before I left, I had to go down to the basement to get things out of the cage where he had been living at the rescue. It was after "lights out" and the stairway down to the basement was dark. I didn't want to turn the light on because then all the birds who had just quieted down would start screaming again. At any rate, I headed down the dark stairway at which point Sebastian crawled up to my shoulder and leaned in to me really close and put his face against mine and said, in a whisper no less "It's dark, what's down here? Where are we going?" I actually answered him without realizing he was having a conversation with me and said "I need to get some of your things out of your cage before I take you home" and he said "ohhhhh"....like he understood. I'm telling you, birds are way smarter than we realize.
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