This parrot beat 21 Harvard students in a classic memory game

[Judi Lynn]

By Brandon Specktor - Senior Writer 12 hours ago

Give this bird a scholarship, please.



Griffin the parrot with his bird-mom, psychologist Irene Pepperberg.
(Image: © Courtesy Harvard/ Stephanie Mitchell)

African grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus) can live more than 50 years, memorize dozens of words in English and, if given the chance, outsmart a flock of Harvard students in a classic Shell Game.

Well, one grey parrot can, anyway. His name is Griffin, and he is the subject of a recent study published May 6 in the journal Scientific Reports. Researchers challenged Griffin to a working memory task where he had to locate a colorful pom-pom hidden under a plastic cup after it was shuffled around a table several times (aka, the Shell Game). Meanwhile, 21 Harvard students were given the same task — and Griffin matched or outperformed them in 12 of 14 trials.

"Think about it: Grey parrot outperforms Harvard undergrads. That's pretty freaking awesome," lead study author Hrag Pailian, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, told The Harvard Gazette. "We had students concentrating in engineering, pre-meds, this, that, seniors, and he just kicked their butts."

To be fair, Griffin is not your average parrot. According to the study authors, the 22-year-old bird "has been the subject of cognitive and communicative studies … since his acquisition from a breeder at 7.5 weeks of age."

More:
https://www.livescience.com/grey-parrot-beats-harvard-students.html

[lastlib]

1. And Cockwomble brags about memorizing and reciting five words......

I want to see his Mensa card, if he's such a "staybull jeenius".

[dflprincess]

2. But could it beat Trump?

Who "amazed" the doctors with cognitive test results. (Of course, he never tells us why the doctors were amazed.)

[Cicada]

3. No one at DU can match chimpanzees at memory. Here is proof.

Chimps are vastly superior to humans in remembering where different numbers appear on a computer screen. Here is proof.

[emmaverybo]

4. Amazing. Nice to see super aware, intelligent chimp having fun and being well treated.