We are a group of scientists from around the world studying parrot vocal learning and cognition.
Research Team (in alphabetical order)
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Lauryn Benedict, PhD
University of Northern Colorado, USA https://www.unco.edu/nhs/biology/about-us/benedict_lauryn.aspx I am an ornithologist and animal behaviorist interested in avian vocal form and function. I have worked mostly on wild songbirds, with a recent expansion into studying the fascinating vocalizations of parrots. I am intrigued by vocal variation among males and females of many ages across diverse bird species. |
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Christine Dahlin, PhD
Departments of Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown https://christinedahlin.weebly.com/ I am an animal behaviorist with a lifelong interest in understanding what birds have to say, and how they say it. I have spent most of my career studying parrots, since their long life spans, big brains, vocal mimicry abilities and social behavior creates remarkable parallels with humans. I also devote time to conservation of my primary species, the critically endangered yellow-naped amazon. |
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Viktoria Groiss, BA MA
Department of Linguistics, University of Vienna I’m a PhD student focusing on cognitive linguistics. I am interested in phonetics, language acquisition, verbal thinking, and language in other species. My experience is mainly with humans, but I am excited to investigate the phonetics of parrots’ speech and cognition. |
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Prof. Dr. Henkjan Honing
Music Cognition Group, ILLC, University of Amsterdam https://www.mcg.uva.nl/people/hhoning/ I am fascinated with the capacity for music (or musicality, for short). I study what musicality is (or could be) —using a wide range of methodologies—, and to what extent human beings share musicality with other animals (and v.v.). All this with the aim to define the cognitive and biological mechanisms that underpin this intriguing cognitive capacity. |
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Marisa Hoeschele, PhD
Acoustics Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences https://www.oeaw.ac.at/en/ari/our-team/hoeschele-marisa I have always had a passion for music and am both an active musician and lead a scientific group that focuses on what aspects of musicality can be found throughout the animal kingdom. To study this, we analyze animal behaviour in response to/when producing sound. While we work with many species, we have several aviaries of budgies (budgerigars) in my lab, and in the last years we also discovered that their warble song can be broken down into components that are similar to consonants and vowels in human speech. With the budgies, therefore, we are also looking into whether something akin to language might exist in other species. |
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Anna N Osiecka, PhD
Institute of Biology, Humbolt University in Berlin, Germany I am a bioacoustician by trade and passion, mostly interested in information coding strategies and the efficiency of information transfer in acoustic signals, particularly from the perspective of emotional states and animal welfare. |
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Irene M. Pepperberg, PhD
Boston University https://alexfoundation.org/ For over 45 years I have studied Grey parrot communication and cognition. I’ve trained Greys to communicate with humans using the sounds of English speech, and then use this communication code to question them as one would question very young children. Publications: >170 peer reviewed journal articles, book chapters, review papers, The Alex Studies, Alex &Me. |
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Dr. Eva Reinisch
Phonetics, Acoustics Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria https://www.oeaw.ac.at/isf/unser-team/reinisch-eva I am a linguist interested in human speech production and perception. I study how variation in speech impacts cognitive processing and language learning. Parrots' ability to mimic speech is fascinating since their vocal tracts are entirely different from humans, yet their signals can sometimes be recognized as words. With this project I hope to find out what makes parrots' speech intelligible to humans, and how various aspects of parrots' verbal behavior match human language learning. |
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Yoshimasa Seki, PhD
Department of Psychology, Aichi University, Japan http://psy.aichi-u.ac.jp/yseki/index_e.html My research theme is comparative cognition, especially in vocal communication, in animals. I think it is very important to study behaviors of companion birds who are living with humans. One of my interesting research topics is imitation of melodies of human music by cockatiels. |
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Michelle Spierings, PhD Institute for Biology Leiden, Leiden University, The Netherlands https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/michelle-spierings#tab-1 My research interest is on music cognition from a comparative perspective, with a focus on rhythm and pitch perception in parrots and primates. I’m interested in parrots specifically for their vocal mimicry complexity. We aim to understand the cognitive perceptual traits that underline this ability, such a relative pitch perception. |
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Karla Vilches Castaño
University of Northern Colorado https://www.unco.edu/nhs/biology/about-us/labs/benedict-lauryn/lab-consultants.aspx I have just started my master’s studies on parrot vocalizations. My experience so far has developed mostly outside of a formal academic setting, and has focused on songbird bioacoustics and on observing Puerto Rican Amazon pair bonding behavior. For this project, I’m interested in learning about how vocal learning ability varies by parrot species using vocal repertoire and mimicry accuracy as indicators of learning. |
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Wynn Webster
University of Northern Colorado, USA https://www.unco.edu/nhs/biology/about-us/labs/benedict-lauryn/lab-consultants.aspx I am a first year Master's student in the Benedict Lab, with a background in avian genomics. My current interests focus on analysis of parrot vocalizations and their evolutionary patterns. My project is looking at phylogenetic evolutionary comparisons between domesticated parrot species. Previously, I worked with tissue comparisons in telomere degradation over time in both Black-capped Chickadees and Yellow Warblers. |
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Ada Włoch I am a Master of Science in biology, zoopsychologist, veterinary technician, member of WPT, IAABC. and privately a guardian of 6 parrots. My interests are in parrot behavior, intelligence and the cognitive abilities of parrots. |