Experts from the University of Glasgow in England and Aalto University in Finland discovered that monkeys love to listen to music and watch marine life on video. They spoke at the conference on the development of interactive systems held on this subject. online.
Researchers placed special tunnels made of wood and plastic in an enclosure with three pale saki in which they placed a screen in the Finnish Zoo. The tunnels are equipped with infrared sensors, where the monkeys activate a video or sound that plays while staying in place.
When trained to interact with the device, the monkeys were twice as likely to play audio than video. Sakis preferred music to rain and traffic noise, and video to recordings made from the bottom of the sea.
The main aim of the study was to find out what kind of content the monkeys prefer and then use that to enrich the environment in the enclosures.
“Animal-computer interaction is still an emerging area of research. The data we collect in this study will be a part of further developments. “The ultimate goal for us is to understand how animals access and understand computer systems to improve apes’ living conditions,” he said.