News from all over - Waltham

A Brandeis University researcher has shown that an African grey parrot with a walnut-sized brain understands a numerical concept akin to zero, an abstract notion that humans don't typically understand until age three or four, and that can significantly challenge learning-disabled children. Strikingly, Alex, the 28-year-old parrot who lives in a Brandeis lab run by comparative psychologist and cognitive scientist Dr. Irene Pepperberg, spontaneously and correctly used the label "none" during a testing session of his counting skills to describe an absence of a numerical quantity on a tray.