Giret Nicolas, Péron Franck, Nagle Laurent, Kreutzer Michel, Bovet Dalila
Laboratoire d'Ethologie et Cognition Comparées, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre - La Défense, avenue de la République 92000 Nanterre, France.
Behav Processes. 2009 Nov;82(3):244-8. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2009.07.001. Epub 2009 Jul 8.
The ability to categorize elements of the environment is a fundamental aspect of information processing. Many experiments demonstrate the ability of birds and non-human primates to classify items according to their perceptual similarities. Few data are available regarding spontaneous classification of items according to a non-perceptual account in non-human animals. Here, we report unexpected results obtained with African grey parrots learning the referential use of French labels. Parrots did not learn the correct labels but they spontaneously produced more labels corresponding to food when a food item was presented to them and more labels corresponding to an object when shown an object item, although they were never rewarded for doing so. These results demonstrate a form of spontaneous categorization by using vocal imitation of the human language.
对环境元素进行分类的能力是信息处理的一个基本方面。许多实验证明了鸟类和非人类灵长类动物根据感知相似性对物品进行分类的能力。关于非人类动物根据非感知因素对物品进行自发分类的数据很少。在此，我们报告了用非洲灰鹦鹉学习法语标签的指代用法所获得的意外结果。鹦鹉没有学会正确的标签，但当向它们展示食物物品时，它们会自发地说出更多与食物对应的标签，而当展示物品时，则会说出更多与物体对应的标签，尽管它们这样做从未得到过奖励。这些结果证明了一种通过对人类语言进行语音模仿的自发分类形式。
