During the early part of the 20th century other people had gotten attention for their so-called ability to communicate with animals. One example was a horse that appeared to count. Scientists were later able to show that the handler gave subtle cues that the animal noticed and reacted to accordingly. In order to prove that Alex wasn't responding to any cues, Pepperberg made sure that people training Alex never tested him. She tested him on many different topics at once, so that he couldn't expect an answer to come from a small subset of possibilities. She made sure she didn't know what object he was being given during a test, so that she couldn't expect a particular answer. Because she repeated tests several times to be sure of her results, Alex often became bored with the repetitiveness of it all.
Even with all the extra controls in her research design, other scientists still sometimes refused to give much merit to her work. I personally think the difficulty with other scientists stem from their jealousy of Dr. Pepperberg's success and the world-wide attention she receives.
At the end of his life, Alex could identify colors, shapes and knew over 100 labels, even occasionally making up his own words like “banerry” for apples (banana + cherry). Another example is “cork nut”. The first time Alex saw a almond in a shell, he called it a “cork”. Dr. Pepperberg told him it was also a nut. So he refered to them as “cork nuts”. He expressed emotion when he had to stay at the vet for the first time. As Pepperberg was leaving he said, “I'm sorry, come here, wanna go back”. She was able to reassure him that everything would be fine and that she would be back the next day.
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