2023-05-31 12:23:52
The intelligence of parrots no longer needs to be proved. Neither do the subtleties of their social behaviors. They communicate, play, help each other and learn from each other. But with high capacity, comes high needs. “In the wild, they always live in groups, but in captivity they are often alone,” said Rebecca Kleinberger, a lecturer at Northeastern University in Boston. “Even with attentive, supportive handlers, they have no way to develop their species identity. We often see hormonal or behavioral disorders, such as pulling out feathers.” So the French researcher, a specialist in visual communication, asked herself a question, or rather two: “If they were offered the possibility of interacting at a distance, would they do it? And would they benefit?”
The answers have just been published in the journal Proceedings of the CHI 23 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. They clearly appear positive. This opens up some prospects for the tens of millions of pet parrots around the world (20 million in the United States alone).
The researchers first wanted to see if what was happening on the screen “made sense” to the birds. This is less obvious than it seems because video standards are adapted to our vision, which is both deprived of ultraviolet light and also slower than that of the birds. But confronted with their fellow birds, the parrots observed them, followed them with their eyes, touched the screen, and even went behind it when the other bird disappeared from the image.
This was followed by a two-week learning phase. Eighteen parrots representing 13 different species were invited – under the watchful eye of their owner and with rewards – to ring a bell and then to touch the screen presented to them in order to make a call. Fifteen of them did it successfully.
Virtual Company
These 15 birds then participated in the last phase of the experiment. For six weeks, the tropical birds were allowed to repeat the experiment as they wished, but without rewards this time. “The results exceeded our expectations,” stated Kleinberger. “We recorded
147 spontaneous calls, enough data to draw conclusions.”
First, the birds seem to enjoy the virtual company of a buddy. Enough to engage them all in the adventure and to often take full advantage of the five minutes of exchange allowed during each call. Personalities have emerged: Those who called the most also received the most calls in return. Beyond these VIPs (“very important parrot”), friendships were also born during the experiment, notably between two old macaws of about 30, visibly relieved to find someone to talk to. Well, in a manner of speaking.
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