A behavioral look at the training of Alex: A review of Pepperberg's the Alex studies: Cognitive and communicative abilities of grey parrots.

Connell et al. (2004) read Irene Pepperberg’s book on Alex the grey parrot. They asked: do Alex’s words fit Skinner’s verbal operants? They looked for tacts (labels) and mands (requests) in the published data. No new birds were trained; this is a conceptual review.

Alex said things like “key” when shown a key and “want nut” to get food. The authors say these acts map cleanly onto tact and mand functions. The parrot shows verbal operants can live outside humans.

Palya (1985) first taught pigeons to peck symbols for food or to label colors. That bird-level proof set the stage for calling Alex’s speech operant behavior.

Lancioni et al. (2009) and Meier et al. (2012) later showed children with autism also gain tacts after mand training. The cross-species pattern—mand first, then tact—looks the same in kids and parrots.

Rast et al. (1985) argued mands and tacts are separate units. Alex’s data agree; one word served two jobs depending on what the situation asked for.

If a parrot can learn separate operants, so can your learners. Use the same three-step plan Pepperberg used: model the word, let the learner produce it, then shift the antecedent to build the next operant. Probe for the tact after mand training; you might already have it.