A PhysOrg.com article about UGA research showing how an African Grey parrot can develop a deeper understanding of words than researchers previously thought quoted Dorothy Fragaszy, a professor of psychology, and Erin Colbert-White, a psychology doctoral student.
“Most of the information we have had about speech in this species of parrot has been anecdotal,” said Colbert-White, also lead author of the research. “What we found out in this work, though, is that the speech and nonwords of the bird we studied vary with social context, indicating a level of understanding that goes beyond vocal imitation and approaches functional use.”