Alex (Avian Language EXperiment) was the name of an animal
psychology experiment that ran for 30 years starting from 1977.
The experiment was designed to see if birds could undertake
complex problem solving and learn languages like primates. For
this, Dr Irene Pepperberg bough an African grey parrot, named
him Alex and started teaching him how to speak. Before Alex,
scientists believed that animals needed a large enough brain
like a primate to handle the complex problems related to
language. But Alex proved otherwise. Before Dr Pepperberg,
scientists failed to establish any two-way communication with
parrots. She used a new training technique called the
model/rival technique, where two trainers act in front of the
parrot to teach it things. The method is as follows. One trainer
(the rival) shows the other trainer the desired student
behaviour they want the parrot to learn. The other trainer then
compliments the trainer and shows attention. The parrot sees
that the behaviour gets the trainer’s attention and le