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1 - Human–Grey Parrot Comparisons in Cognitive Performance

from Part I - The Comparative Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2020

By
Irene M. Pepperberg
Edited by
Lance Workman ,
Will Reader  and
Jerome H. Barkow
Lance Workman
Affiliation:
University of South Wales
Will Reader
Affiliation:
Sheffield Hallam University
Jerome H. Barkow
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia
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Summary

Animal cognition is, by itself, an incredibly broad field, encompassing a huge variety of taxa and involving many different topics in both the laboratory and nature. When asked to view the field through the lens of an evolutionary perspective relative to humans, most scientists focus on our nearest relatives, the great apes (e.g., note the preponderance of chapters devoted to nonhuman primates in Vonk & Shackelford, 2012). Convergent evolution, however, provides striking insights into how distantly related species have responded to similar social and ecological challenges, and comparisons between avian and primate species have demonstrated remarkable parallels in various capacities (Emery & Clayton, 2004; Pepperberg, 1999, 2013). In areas such as vocal learning, avian species, separated from humans by over 300 million years of evolution (e.g., Hedges et al., 1996), actually provide a better model for study than do apes (e.g., Bolhuis & Everaert, 2013; Chakraborty et al., 2015).

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior , pp. 3 - 13
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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