They discover that parrots know how to make video calls

Parrots are highly intelligent animals that can form complex social, cognitive and emotional relationships. When they are free, they often live with their family and friends, forming a large community. However, many lose these important relationships in captivity, thereby putting their own cognitive abilities at risk.

But what if they could somehow maintain this close relationship with their fellow humans? To answer this question, a group of scientists from Northeast University in Boston (USA), the MIT Media Lab, and the University of Glasgow set out to teach parrots the benefits of using it. Popular tools like Skype, Zoom, and Teams in your social life.

for three months, 18 birds from various parrot species including gray parrots, cockatoos and macaws, conducted a series of exercises aimed at recognizing and even enjoying the action of the video call. The idea was to teach parrots to associate the sound of a bell with the selection on a tablet of a photo of another specimen of the bird, and then initiate the call with one of the selected birds.

To carry out this pioneering experiment, the parrots were organized into five different groups to get to know each other. In the first stage, each parrot encountered another bird from its group twice, and If they rang the bell on the tablet, they got a reward. Thus began a call that ended if the birds showed apathy, moved away, or showed signs of stress.

In the second phase, the 15 parrots were rearranged into six small groups. On this occasion, researchers allowed the birds to make video calls for up to three hours. At this stage, birds can summon up to two birds from their group in one session. After each of these meetings, parrot owners uploaded the video to a platform and filled out a questionnaire.

Preference for specific partners

When the records fell into the hands of scientists, something shocking happened: parrots had developed preferences for chatting with their favorite friends. “We also found that each parrot developed its own way of using the system,” explains Rébecca Kleinburger, lead author of this paper. Each animal met the call according to its personality. For example, The more social ones called more, did it faster and stayed ‘on the phone’ longer. Sociability was also rewarded, as other parrots were also more likely to communicate with those who were friendlier to them.

One of the parrots during the experiment R. Kleinberger

Questionnaires completed by parrot caregivers, on the one hand, showed that: no sample felt or experienced discomfort during the experiment and on the other hand, that they even enjoyed the experience. Thanks to these notes, it was possible to know that the parrot known as P2 spoke and invited his mate (P1) to play with him. “Every time his partner disappeared from the screen, P2 recalled him,” the document says.

Caregivers began to perceive new behaviors they had never seen before. to contain new habits of flapping, foraging, and being calmer. Finally, most birds (78%) responded to the presence of another bird on the screen, and they did so differently depending on which congener was on the other side of the screen.

Parrots managed to interact with video call R. Kleinberger

“These are really encouraging results,” insisted Jennifer Cunha, co-author and co-founder of Parrot Kindergarten. “The parrots seemed to realize that they were actually interacting with other birds on the screen. and their behavior generally reflected what we would expect from real-life interactions between such birds.”

A year has passed since this experience, and most of the birds participating in the study continue to make video calls. “All the people involved in the study showed an interest in continuing to provide this resource to parrots,” says Kleinburger.

Reference work: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3544548.3581166

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