Snyder P J, Harris L J
Department of Neurology, Allegheny General Hospital, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Neuropsychologia. 1997 Jun;35(6):919-26. doi: 10.1016/s0028-3932(97)00010-9.
To study footedness in parrots, an international survey of parrot owners was conducted. Responses were obtained from 524 individuals, including 70 owners of African Grey parrots (all animals > or = 10 months old). All respondents were given a 10-item questionnaire and a standard method for testing foot preference in their pets, and they were asked to count the number of separate words in their pets' lexicons of human speech sounds. Right-footed African Greys (N = 36) had significantly larger lexicons than left-footed African Greys (N = 34; P = 0.01). This difference could not be accounted for by group differences in training efforts or socialization/housing with conspecifics. A non-significant trend in the same direction was found in a comparison sample of Amazon parrots, although these genera are less adept than African Greys at learning human speech sounds. Other investigators have provided convincing evidence of lateralization, in the avian brain, for the analysis and memory of differing types of stimuli. In addition, there appears to be preferential left hypserstriatal activation for long-term memory consolidation. Our results suggest a relationship between lateral asymmetry for motor preference and asymmetric CNS mediation of a 'higher cognitive' function (i.e. the categorization and long-term mnestic processing of human speech sound.
为了研究鹦鹉的用脚偏好，对鹦鹉主人进行了一项国际调查。从524个人那里获得了回复，其中包括70名非洲灰鹦鹉的主人（所有动物年龄大于或等于10个月）。所有受访者都收到了一份包含10个问题的问卷以及一种测试其宠物用脚偏好的标准方法，并且他们被要求统计其宠物人类语音词汇表中不同单词的数量。右撇子非洲灰鹦鹉（N = 36）的词汇量显著大于左撇子非洲灰鹦鹉（N = 34；P = 0.01）。这种差异无法用训练努力程度或与同种个体的社交/饲养方面的群体差异来解释。在亚马逊鹦鹉的一个比较样本中发现了相同方向的一个不显著趋势，尽管这些种类在学习人类语音方面不如非洲灰鹦鹉熟练。其他研究人员已经提供了令人信服的证据，证明鸟类大脑中存在对不同类型刺激进行分析和记忆的偏侧化现象。此外，似乎左超纹状体在长期记忆巩固方面有优先激活。我们的结果表明运动偏好的侧不对称与“更高认知”功能（即人类语音的分类和长期记忆处理）的不对称中枢神经系统调节之间存在关联。
