Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Talking Raven


If ravens can talk like this, imagine what dinosaurs could do.
Via Best of YouTube

18 comments:

  1. Is this for real, did that Raven really talk?

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  2. I wondered the same thing. What convinced me, apart from hearing lots of parrots talk and reading about raven talk, is how consistent the head bobs were, and also the weird non-human speech artifacts on the last phrase. But who knows?

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  3. there are some videos of 'terry the raven'. seems legit, ravens are pretty intelligent.

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  4. I was watching videos of ravens and starlings talk a few months ago. I am pretty convinced that they can. The idea that a dinosaur could speak if we could only interact with them excites my inner child to no end! *u*

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  5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ0yrG-Yz88

    This one is cute.

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  6. IMHO that doesn't sound real to me!

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  7. Interesting!
    Imagine if ravens could REALLY think and talk like humans...Anyone read "Next" by Michael Crichton?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_%28novel%29

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  8. If you like that, you'll love this crazy lyrebird. video 1 video 2

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  9. I'm scared of what my beagle would say to me!!!

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  10. You can say a lot with a vocabulary of only 850 words (Basic English). It has been shown that a sheep dog (border collie) can be trained to recognise over 200 words, so 850 is not such a stretch.

    But it's the grammar that's the problem, not the vocabulary. Can the bird think logically enough to put a sentence together (like this one)?

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  11. After watching the other videos of the same raven, it seems not only to be mimicking the words, but the actual voice of the person teaching him the words. It's only a matter of time before that raven starts making prank phone calls.

    Now, I want to see a dinosaur ask for a cookie.

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  12. Don, There's been a lot of work with language behavior in African gray parrots, especially by Dr. Irene Pepperberg of Harvard:

    YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_Fpad20Zbk

    Concepts like "similar, different" and shapes, colors, and even numbers are well within a parrot's intellectual grasp, according to Pepperberg.

    Also, I've read some of the observations of naturalist Bernd Heinrich, who had some startling observations about pet ravens.

    Anyone have any other books they recommend on raven intelligence?

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  14. I read "Bird Brains", which is more of a diverting read than an in depth scientific examination. It is full of interesting anecdotes, observations, and great photos of the Corvid family. Neat little facts such as their ability to count to six (actually count to six, not mimic the words) and learning to evade human detection for decades despite existing in large numbers can be found in this book.
    http://www.amazon.com/Bird-Brains-Intelligence-Ravens-Magpies/dp/0871569566
    my wife and I actually had the pleasure of having a crow stay with us until he reached maturity and could fly. They are shockingly intellegent.
    http://deadoftheday.blogspot.com/2008/06/jimmy.html

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  15. I once watched a documentary on ravens that interact with campers. If my memory serves me, they were using them as research for animal intelligence. They observed them and not only were they able to open plastic containers and velcro pouches but they would use zippers like pros, Honestly i cannot remember why that was a big thing but my memory tells me it had something to do with abstract thinking on a level that researchers thought animals were just not capable of.

    That could all be way off the mark though as it was a long time ago.

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  16. I think Bix would find this dialogue amusing. :-)

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