I'm a 31 year old American expat living in Oslo, Norway, with my bulldog, Ada, and my husband, Johannes. My interests include interaction design, especially information architecture, philosophy of mind and ethics, cognitive psychology, sociobiology, feminism, yoga, fat acceptance, knitting, pottery, and cooking.Goodbye to Washoe and Alex
Washoe and Alex were pioneers in the field of linguistics.
Washoe was the first chimpanzee taught American Sign Language. She was raised in a human environment in the same way as a deaf child would have been raised. Her adopted son, Loulis, learned American Sign Language directly from her. You can read more about Washoe at her homepage.
Alex, an African Grey parrot, possessed reasoning skills equivalent to that of a five-year-old child. He could count, knew his colors, could identify many everyday objects and answer questions about them, and could even do math. He was even learning to read.
Alex has long been one of my favorite non-human characters in cognitive science research, along with Kanzi and Kismet. He’ll be greatly missed by many.