Pass Along RJ
December 08

Is Looking Learning?
by Steve Smith

What do monkeys, snakes, a really smart parrot, and a bunch of retriever guys have in common? Probably nothing, if you were to ask them. But they really do, far more than they think.

It's long been common knowledge that dogs watching other dogs work gets them so fired up and competitive that when it's their turn, they do their best. The chain gang is the best example I can think of. But it looks as though the phenomenon goes a lot deeper than that.

One long-term study done at Northwestern University by Dr. Susan Mineka involved monkeys reared in the wild with a healthy fear of snakes – a fear often crossing over into panic – and laboratory-reared monkeys, which did not have that fear… nothing, zip, nada. But when the lab monkeys were exposed to wild monkeys going off the deep end over snakes, the lab monkeys developed an exact fear for the snakes that the wild monkeys had. Even at the same level: A lab monkey exposed to a fearful monkey gets fearful when he sees a snake, but he doesn't panic unless he'd learned his fear of snakes from a wild monkey that panics at the sight of a snake. Monkey see, monkey do, evidently.

The experiment showed Dr. Mineka that this fear is learned and, in fact, it's a good thing because in the wild, all things considered, monkeys being afraid of snakes is a good thing and helps monkey survival. They, like so many other creatures, have to learn this way because trial and error gets you eaten.

There are other examples of this throughout the animal kingdom, of course, and there's no doubt that a monkey has some sort of genetic predisposition to learn that snakes are to be feared, just as a gazelle has a genetic predisposition to learn that the long lanky spotted cat means trouble. But I mentioned a parrot earlier, and that's an interesting case. This bird's name is Alex, an African grey parrot, and by the accounts, he was, or maybe still is, one smart bird – with the cognitive ability estimated to be that of a child four to six years old. He can verbally answer questions that require some level of pretty advanced learning.

If, for example, you put different types of objects in front of him with different shapes and colors and in varying numbers all jumbled together – blocks and balls, both blue and red, for instance – and ask him how many blue balls there are, he counts them and tells you the number. He has to discriminate between shapes, then colors within the shape he chooses, and then assign the proper number to the group he's sorted out. He even learned, on his own, to spell in a rudimentary fashion to make a point when he isn't getting what he wants. I'd love to meet this bird.

How was he taught? Not by speaking words to him and getting him to repeat them by rote. Rather, the researcher, Dr. Irene Pepperberg, taught abstract concepts – such as the difference between colors and shapes, and shapes with different colors – to another person while Alex simply watched.

Excerpted from Steve Smith's "Is Looking Learning?" If you're a subscriber, you can read the rest of this article in the subscribers' only section of our website -- just click here. If you haven't already, you'll need to register an account using your Customer Number.

The full article "Is Looking Learning " by Steve Smith also appears in the February/March 2006 issue of Retriever Journal . To order your back issues (and any others), visit our Online Store! While there, you can also shop for RJ hats, books by your favorite RJ authors, training videos and DVDs, and more!

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