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Here's your wiki for the Pepperberg reading.

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I found it interesting that M/R training using intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. Yet they taught Alex to say "I want X" after identifying Y, if he did this then he could have X. I understand it is not to confuse him of the object, but isn't this still extrinsic?

They said the flaw of previous experiments with extrinsic rewards is that they "confound the label of the concept with that of the food." Basically the reward had nothing to do with what was being taught. The "intrinsic reinforcers" in this experiment were things that were actually being referred to in the room and could be given as a reward. Basically, if Alex wanted Y he had to say he wanted Y and the experimenters knew that he was not just saying he "wanted" the thing that they had been using in the experiment (X).

"de novo" means from the beginning in Latin just in case someone didn't know.

"isomorphic" means "having a similar structure to something that is not related genetically"

The M/R procedure uses social interaction and context to teach. The parrot in this case has to be interested enough in this process to learn from it without being constantly preoccupied with the thought of the reward of a treat or food. In this sense, it is utilizing a form of intrinsic motivation. Additionally, the animal gets to choose a given object by correctly naming it and saying that they want it as a reward, which implies that they are able to learn about something independently of the reward (as a mutually-exclusive concept). “Therefore, the animal learns the name of the object (intrinsic reward) and not that the object’s name means food” (McKinley, Young, 2002). They don’t just repeat the vocabulary simply because they know that by correctly doing so they get a reward; they use specific words to directly identify an object, showing that they understand the concept of the object itself.

McKinley, S. and R. J. Young. 2003. __The efficacy of the model-rival method when compared with operant conditioning for training domestic dogs to perform a retrieval-selection task.__ //Applied Animal Behaviour Science// 81: 357-365

This paper showed how language skills range across species, with long-lived, socially complex animals having the better language-type skills. This adds weight to the idea that these things (longevity and social complexity) had a significant impact on the development of human language.