Not only people are into music and TV streaming services like Spotify and Netflix.
Experts have developed an “ape media player” that allows primates such as gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans to use interactive systems to access sounds and videos.
The touchscreen systems entertain and engage the animals with interactions found in the wild.
Researchers from the University of Glasgow discovered that the primates seemed to prefer listening to the sounds rather than watching videos.
They also had short attention spans of just a few seconds, and scientists have yet to determine if this is due to their lack of interest in auditory and visual stimuli.
The player was developed as part of ongoing projects by animal-computer interaction specialists to improve the enrichment of captive animals.
Three white-faced sakis at Finland’s Korkeasaari Zoo (pictured) learned to use a ‘monkey media player’, which has an interactive system that allows them to play videos and sounds
Various videos and sounds were played to the monkeys, including clips of worms (stock image)
Enrichment is incredibly important to maintaining the mental and physical well-being of zoo animals.
Scientists are studying how technology can be used to keep the minds of the most intelligent species like primates as active as if they were in the wild.
Touch screen systems have already been implemented in zoos in the UK and elsewhere to entertain and stimulate the cognition of their monkeys.
The Scottish researchers tested their new multimedia system on three white-faced saki monkeys at Korkeasaari Zoo in Helsinki, Finland.
A small computer was placed in a wooden and plastic tunnel in the monkeys’ enclosure for 32 days.
For the first week of the experiment, the tunnel was silent to allow the sakis to get used to his presence in their enclosure.
Then, for 18 days, the animals triggered a video or sound when walking through infrared beams in designated interactive zones.
You would be shown a rotating selection of rain sounds, music or traffic sounds, and videos of worms, underwater scenes, or abstract shapes and colors that change every few days
These should mimic the sights and sounds they may experience in the wild.
The primates could choose between an audio or video stimulus when passing the infrared beam.
The device continued playing for as long as they wanted, recording what they saw and heard and how long they stayed in the interactive zone.
For the final week of the experiment, the tunnel was again non-interactive before scientists examined the results.
This builds on previous research by the team, which used a similar system to measure Sakis’ interactions first with video only and then audio only, but this is the first media player to offer them multiple types of stimuli.
The research team led by Dr. Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas from the University of Glasgow and Vilma Kankaanpaa from Aalto University in Finland found that the sakis’ interactions were mostly brief, lasting only a few seconds.
This reflected the way they behaved around objects they were already familiar with in their enclosure.
They also found that the monkeys elicited the auditory stimuli twice as strongly as the visual stimuli, but over time the level of interaction with both decreased.
Of the three audio files provided, they listened to music most often and their favorite video was the underwater scene.
dr Hirskyj-Douglas, from the University of Glasgow’s School of Computing Science, said: “We have been working with Korkeasaari Zoo for several years to learn more about how white-headed sakis could benefit from computer systems specially designed for them.
“Previously we’ve looked at how they interact with video content and audio content, but this is the first time we’re offering the ability to choose between the two.
“Our results raise a number of questions worth investigating further to help us build effective interactive enrichment systems.”
“Further study could help us determine whether the brief interactions were simply part of their typical behavior or reflected their interest in the system.
“Similarly, their varying levels of interaction over time could reflect how engaging they found the content, or simply that they became accustomed to the tunnel’s presence in their enclosure.”
“Although they chose audio more often than video, the results were not statistically significant enough to know for sure which they prefer.”