Birds of a Feather video flock together
Design and evaluation of an agency based parent to parrot video
calling system for interspecies ethical enrichment.
Over 20 million birds are kept as pets in the United States alone,
despite the high cognitive, social
and emotional needs, they often lack appropriate enrichment,
which can lead to aggressive behavior, self-harm and stereotypes.
Some approaches exist for cognitive enrichment, such as toys,
food, environmental stimuli and interactive puzzles.
However, very little solutions exist for social and emotional enrichment
or to support the species identity.
In addition, Parrots have many uncured transmissibility diseases,
including the avian ganglioneuritus a terminal wasting disease
which affects about 43% of the parrots population.
Limiting the feasibility of in-person socialization with other birds.
However, some parrots already
freely use tablets for games and entertainment.
Therefore, the question arises
if given the opportunity,
would parents engage in video calls with other parents?
To answer this complex question,
we established various steps of measurable assessment.
First, can we as humans actually provide companion
parents with the opportunity to connect remotely with other birds?
This request to assess sense
making from screen stimuli
and create a process to ensure calls are deliberate
and reflect the animal control and expression.
Secondly, would the birds use this agency?
And how,
if given the opportunity, would they trigger calls?
What would the calls look like?
And what could be the benefits for the birds?
This work involves careful consideration in terms of ethics
by assessing benefits versus risks, by training human participants
to facilitate interactions and through safety protocols.
We developed a force free learning method based on consent.
Was a bird is free to walk or fly away.
We developed a three step collaboration validation
method to express intent, which include ringing a bell,
selecting a bird to call and being engaged during calls.
We consider extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation,
and no reward or treat was given during calls,
as well as the importance of keeping a human in the loop.
The goal being to support enrichment in home context
as opposed to testing birds intelligence in isolation.
Following a two month pilot
study and gathering feedback from parrot professionals on our protocol,
we ran a three month study on 18 bird participants in two stages.
The first stage called Meet-and-Greet aimed to introduce a bird to each other
and creating an association between ringing a bell,
touching another bird on the screen and triggering a call.
The second
stage called open calls, constituted of making the bell
available to the bird for 3 hours a day, over ten weeks.
During that time, they could choose to call other birds.
During a meet and greet sessions,
The bird learned the association between touching a bell
Touch the bell Good girl!
Touch the bell Good Boy!
Your your bell.
I want to hear it!
Then touching the photo of another bird on the screen.
Can you touch Rosie? Good girl!
Do you want to touch the picture so we can call her.
Good job,
Good job!
Touch Theo
This session, repeated over two weeks, triggered the meet and greet calls
to introduce a bird to each other
Oh, hi,
Sonny. Hi.
hii!
Then for over two months, we provided the birds with their bell during open call sessions
when they could freely request calls
To make a call, they had to corroborate by touching the bell,
then to screen, to select a bird, to call.
Do you want to call a friend?
Would you like to call a friend, Eleanor?
Would you like to call this time?
Which friend would you like to call?
You want to call Rosie?
Okay.
These two phases resulted in 112 meet-and-greet calls
147 calls freely triggered and corroborated for over 1000 hours
of video data
to assess if birds were indeed provided with agency,
we assessed their ability to make sense of the stimuli on the screen
during meet and greet as its phase pertains more novelty effect
likely resulting in more reaction and surprise behavior.
This included timely reaction to the other bird
appearing on screen.
There's your friend Theo
Ready?
Do you want to talk to her?
You do?
Okay.
So you can say hello
in response to the other
bird going off screen.
Yeah, that's him.
That's Henry
or signs of following the other bird
on the screen.
You want to say hi?
Yes, that's Rosie.
Yes! Where is she?
Yes, there she is.
We concluded that most parrots respond to and appear
to make sense of the presence of a bird on the screen.
And parrots reacted differently depending on who was on the call,
and they had their own preferences
Regarding agency,
every bird in phase two triggered calls and participated in the calls.
One key finding was a significant correlation
between the number of outgoing calls and the number of received
calls suggesting the development of a social dynamic
measured through individual social scores. The validity of the proposed
social scores is further supported by the correlation between high number
of calls triggered and strong engagement within calls. With longer calls,
more interest in reaction to the other bird.
The role of the human-in-the-loop
was instrumental for successful and ethical use of the technology.
It also aligned
with the context of enrichment in the home setting.
All caretakers reported perceived benefit for themselves
and for their bird.
Finally, such type of research requires careful monitoring of the animals’ stress
and long term solution for ethical, sustainable enrichment.
We observed a lot of positive social mirroring behaviors
such as preening,
singing,
what do you think? you like singing?
he is getting excited!
or play behaviors.
Caretakers reported perceived benefits both for their birds and for themselves
as they learned about their parrot’s ability
and behaviors through a new social bonding activity.
Is Lucy going to call us?
All caretakers reported wanting to continue providing their birds
with the ability to call others.
This approach illustrates the potential for Human-Animal-Computer Interaction
as a source of interspecies ethical enrichment.