Science & technology

摘要

Although parrots are often credited with astounding gifts of mimicry, these misunderstood birds are largely believed to be incapable of more. In recent years, however, scholars have attempted to quantify the emotional and intellectual capacity of parrots, both domestically bred and in the wild. Before she stopped keeping track, Craige (comparative literature, Univ. of Georgia) documented that Cosmo, her beloved six-year-old African gray, had learned to speak over 100 words and more than 200 phrases and had mastered several contextual- inflections.