Pet Parrots Prefer Live Video-Calls Over Watching Pre-Recorded Videos (phys.org) 73
When given the choice, pet parrots prefer to video-call each other instead of watch pre-recorded videos of other birds. Those are the findings from a new paper (PDF) set to appear next week at a conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Hawaii. Phys.Org reports: The study, led by animal-computer interaction specialists at the University of Glasgow, gave tablet devices to nine parrots and their owners to explore the potential of the video chats to expand the birds' social lives. Their results suggest that the clever birds, who often suffer from loneliness in captivity, may be able to tell the difference between live and pre-recorded content on digital devices, and strongly prefer interacting with other birds in real time.
Over the course of the six-month study, the parrots chose to initiate calls to other birds significantly more often than they opted to watch pre-recorded footage. They also seemed more engaged in the live chats, spending much longer on calls with other birds than they did watching videos from a library of options. The findings could help steer the future course of the emerging "animal internet," which uses digital technology to empower animals to interact with humans and each other in new ways.
Over the course of the six-month study, the parrots chose to initiate calls to other birds significantly more often than they opted to watch pre-recorded footage. They also seemed more engaged in the live chats, spending much longer on calls with other birds than they did watching videos from a library of options. The findings could help steer the future course of the emerging "animal internet," which uses digital technology to empower animals to interact with humans and each other in new ways.
Not a surprise (Score:4, Funny)
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"I'm here live . I'm not a parrot." [youtube.com] ;)
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Who funded this?
Mostly UK taxpayers.
What a waste of time.
Perhaps. But the government needs to burn up those tax pounds on something, and this is better than bombs.
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Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
What a waste of time.
Don't know about that. Many (most?) parrots will probably live longer than you. This makes them a better potential long-term consumer market than you. So knowing how to engage and interact with them and learn what they like could help drive ads and sales, long after you're dead. :-)
Re: Wow (Score:2)
How much money does a parrot typically earn
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How much money does a parrot typically earn
It's not about that, but about how much they can (be convinced to) spend.
Think about them as a less-annoying child or non-working spouse.
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https://i.imgur.com/ysLCJO1.jp... [imgur.com]
Re: Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
How much money does a parrot typically earn
My parrot - an African Grey named Pompey - doesn't earn anything, but he certainly costs me a lot. I spend more money on fruit and veg for him than I do on myself, and decent healthy grain can be expensive (i.e. not just fatty sunflower seeds).
Oh, and also... I had to turn ordering via Alexa off, because he was adding stuff to my basket when I was at work. He loves his Alexa, and chooses the type of music he wants to listen to ("Alexa, play pop" or "Alexa play reggae" etc.), he turns the volume up or down depending on whether it's a song he likes or not, and if he's really unhappy then he'll sternly say "Alexa: OFF". None of that surprised me as I taught him how to do it all. What I didn't expect was for him to have picked up on "Alexa, buy parrot food". He knows what 'food' is, so I guess he just overheard me say it to Alexa once and decided it was a good idea...
Uhhh... anyway... if there was a service where I could pay for Pompey to get two or three 'live video calls' per day when I'm out at work - and if that price were reasonable - then I would certainly consider it. So... maybe the reasearch isn't quite as crazy as all that from a 3. Profit! perspective...
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. if there was a service where I could pay for Pompey to get two or three 'live video calls' per day when I'm out at work - and if that price were reasonable - then I would certainly consider it.
That's what I was thinking. There might be a service in the future for pets (not only parrots) to interact when they are home alone. Animals get depressed and can either get sick or engage in destructive behavior (which is both sad and costs money.)
What would be interesting is having some sort of bird social network, and see how different birds (parrots, canaries, chicken) can interact with one another.
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We could call it twitter...
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Ages ago I worked at a place doing physical security, so the installers were experienced doing low voltage wiring. I wanted to approach the zoos in Seattle and Tacoma (and later other cities) about wiring up the elephant house with controls that would allow them to call each other. In the wild elephants frequently communicate long distances from one water hole to another via low frequency sound. After investigating I found that (without any donations of equipment, just labor donated) the cost would have
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So long, and thanks for all the crackers?
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This makes them a better potential long-term consumer market than you.
Except parrots can't do any "useful" work, so how will they purchase anything? I get that modern theories have replaced the 'consumer' with a generic algorithm that spits out money indefinitely; however, back here in Reality, work is traded for work.
Marketing to parrots would be more formally recognized as marketing to the human that oversees the parrot... good luck on that when the human that has the parrot may not be the person who chose the parrot.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
Research in animal behaviour has existed for long and well-being of pets has grown in importance recently as a social concern. The first author of this study is the director of an academic laboratory specialized in animal-computer interaction. Technologies developed in this and other similar labs have been deployed in zoological parks to the benefit of the conservation efforts. This particular research demonstrates business opportunities even for the at-home application. Hopefully entrepreneurs will pick up and develop dedicated devices for pets and their owners. The UK taxpayer was well-served.
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Wow I didn't realize Slashdotters love parrots so much. Really makes you think.
Re: Wow (Score:2)
It makes you think that intelligent people like intelligent birds?
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This is also a very useful contribution to understandings of animal intelligence. Since we have trouble understanding birds in their own language (to short circuit the parrot jokes) observing behavior is the only means of learning about how the think and perceive the world. It is useful to realize that they can perceive the difference between live video feeds and recorded feeds, that they aware of the novel behavior exhibited in live feeds.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
How sad that you're so incurious.
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The issue with this research is that it's a given that the effect exists, anyone can see that, but that the interesting thing is mostly how big the effect is. To me, it's more so interesting that they apparently chose to watch recorded footage at all.
But I think a general weird thing about a lot of studies that investigate whether two variables correlate is that people take this “expected null hypothesis” as in, the idea that in general two randomly chosen variables do not correlate seriously. I
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If anything, chosing two random variables and finding no correlation would be remarkable.
This is why there is a sophisticated field of study devoted to correlation and determining if they are significant. [wikipedia.org]
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I'm amazed how many people on slashdot now hate science and learning.
We used to be a bunch of nerds who just loved learning and discovery for its own sake. The audience got old, reactionary and stupid.
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I'm amazed how many people on slashdot now hate science and learning.
We used to be a bunch of nerds who just loved learning and discovery for its own sake. The audience got old, reactionary and stupid.
It was easier to love learning and discovery for its own sake back in 1995-2003 when we all had good jobs either in STEM, learning/discovery, or had good jobs in general and just happened to be early-adopter STEM geeks on the side.
We didn't leave learning/discovery behind, learning/discovery left us. The economic reality has shifted.
Be careful what you wish for.
"Man wouldn't it be awesome if someday I could get paid for my self-directed tech knowledge/skill acquisition hobby?"
[25 years later, after
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The audience got old, reactionary and stupid.
And greedy. If research isn't going to make someone money they see no reason that it should be carried out. Knowledge for knowledge's sake doesn't make anyone rich so in the trash can of history it goes. The worst part is that I see a large portion of our government follows their example. I can't help but think that it has a **LOT** to do with the modern media addiction and the short term outlooks that it generates.
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Are you really claiming that studying intelligence is a waste of time?
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PhDs are expected to publish. The old saying of "publish or perish" applies here. Each contributor likely has their own funding and own motives for participating in this research. But given that contributor is part of a "media lab" and another is part of a "parrot kindergarten" makes me suspect that very little money was required to fund this particular research.
What scientific value does it have? Well it's not a missile or bomb, so it doesn't help the war effort. I guess we'll have to be satisfied that thi
Not at all surprising (Score:5, Interesting)
They're intelligent social animals. Even just a change in eye contact from me alters my Amazon's behavior. He's incredibly attuned to my posture, tone of voice, mannerisms, etc, to clue in whether he's going to e.g. be getting a treat or scolded for misbehavior or whatnot. I can't imagine that a video without that back-and-forth would stimulate him.
I don't watch TV anymore, but he used to just tune it out. Rather, he'd tune into *me*. He'd laugh at the funny parts of shows and the like, not because he understood the humour, but because he was paying attention to me, and I was laughing, so he wanted to join in. And then I'd react amusedly to his taking part, he'd get attention, and getting attention was in turn a reward to him. They like getting reactions to the things they do. A video won't do that.
And yeah, he understands what screens are - same as mirrors. Some smaller psittacines are known to strongly interact with mirrors as if they're other birds, but in my experience, the larger ones don't do that; they quickly learn it's their reflection and stop caring. As a side note, I actually tried the mirror test with my Amazon twice, but each time I got a null result. You're supposed to put an unusual mark or lightweight object on their head where they can't see it, put them in front of a mirror, and if they interact with the mirror like it's another animal, they don't recognize it's their reflection; while if they use it to try to preen the hidden mark/object, it's a sign of recognition. But my Amazon didn't give a rat's arse. I might as well have put him in front of a wall for all it mattered; he gave the mark zero attention. Didn't care about the reflection of a bird. Didn't care about the mark on his head. Just sat there waiting for me to put him back on his cage :P I couldn't get him to interact with the reflection at all. Nor does he react to birds on TV. By contrast, he'll VERY MUCH interact with a real bird (he hates them all... he's very antisocial with nonhumans).
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Over 20 years ago, Dr. Irene Pepperburg and other members of the MIT Media Lab created the "Interpet Explorer". It was designed to see if the Grey Parrots would interact with what was on the screen. I think the study concluded the birds preferred working with people in person. My old Grey liked watching kids programming because she liked the sounds the characters made. I have one now that doesn't care for watching the TV but when I am on Teams calls and he is in the room, he loves making a ruckus by whi
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>> They're intelligent social animals
So true. I've 'hosted' some cockatiels as pets and they were very smart in their own way. Loved attention and were very interactive.
Re:Not at all surprising (Score:4, Informative)
As a side note, I actually tried the mirror test with my Amazon twice, but each time I got a null result.
The mirror test universally failed on cats, leading to the conclusion that cats don't understand mirrors.
Right up until some completely nonscientific people taking funny videos with snapchat filters.
https://twitter.com/nicholarai... [twitter.com]
Not all cats react, obviously the video is of ones that do, but it's abundantly clear that despite having failed the mirror test in studies, cats (at least some) know what a mirror is and how it works, because they react to the difference between what's above out of view and what's in the mirror.
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Depends on the cat. some of them which will fight or run away from another cat just ignore mirrors.
It's not a definitive answer but I wouldn't say it isn't useful data. It certainly indicated something was off with the original conclusions of the mirror test.
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it's not that they consider the mirror itself as an object.
it's that they recognize _what_ they see, ignoring the phenomenon of reflection.
I can very reliably motion to my cat "here" through the reflection _on the stove's front glass_ and he comes to me, not towards the reflection.
the intricacies and metaphysical aspects of "perception" intrigue me a whole fucking lot. What we consider "vision" has nothing to do with optics. It's all _thought_. All of it. What we name "vision" is the *result* of whatever su
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A study a number of years ago found that dogs could tell the actual emotional state of a professional actor better than a human in the same room could. I always found that intriguing.
Parrot Porn (Score:5, Funny)
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The bird is the word.
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I'm guessing the other birds were not wearing clothes.
The real question is how much BIRD CRED you got.
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swiping right with beak
What you see is not what they get (Score:3, Interesting)
My dog does not respond to dog or many other noises it usually does when on the TV, likely because nothing really above 12kHz gets through while their range goes up to 45kHz. It must sound awful and not life like to them. Dogs also see flicker up to about 75hz so between the two they probably wonder what the heck we are doing watching a garbled flickery box all day. At least with newer formats the frame rate is better, 24 fps must look just unbearably bad to birds and dogs.
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Parrots (and most birds) can see about 120-140 “frames” per second whereas a human is 30-60.24 fps must look just unbearably bad to birds and dogs.
Except recorded and live video will almost certainly use near-identical framerates, since both are tailored to human perception in the first place. If the birds react different to the videos then it should be based on the actual content itself.
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Except recorded and live video will almost certainly use near-identical framerates, since both are tailored to human perception in the first place. If the birds react different to the videos then it should be based on the actual content itself.
Where did I say it would favor one over the other? Look up and read it again. It was more to the effect of animals do not share the same senses as humans just because they have eyes and ears and our technology likely looks alien to them in ways that humans do not see. Thats not even counting how their brains process visual and auditory cues differently, further changing perceptions. Neither calls nor live video are going to look nearly as well to birds as humans see it, something most people wouldn
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This is interesting. I've noticed that most of my parrot's senses seem duller than mine (unlike with, say, dogs) - not as picky with taste (except staleness), no meaningful signs of a significant sense of smell, has trouble seeing things that are right near him sometimes, etc - but he seems more atuned to having rapid reactions to anything unusual than I am. Like, at my old place, whenever a chunk of ice would break off the roof and crash down to the ground below, he'd be reacting before my senses even r
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I've noticed that most of my parrot's senses seem duller than mine (unlike with, say, dogs) - not as picky with taste (except staleness), no meaningful signs of a significant sense of smell, has trouble seeing things that are right near him sometimes, etc
Many birds (including parrots) are generally tetrachromats so he can likely perceive things you cannot visually, even if he can't focus very close. Bird eyes are somewhat different from human ones with a very different set of tradeoffs, he can probably see
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I've noticed that most of my parrot's senses seem duller than mine (unlike with, say, dogs) - not as picky with taste (except staleness), no meaningful signs of a significant sense of smell, has trouble seeing things that are right near him sometimes, etc
Many birds (including parrots) are generally tetrachromats so he can likely perceive things you cannot visually, even if he can't focus very close. Bird eyes are somewhat different from human ones with a very different set of tradeoffs, he can probably see things you can't and vice versa.
On any video, parrots are likely to see it as a kind of sepia like tone because their vision extents into the ultraviolet while not exactly overlapping the same sensitivity our cones produce and our RGB style formats do not accommodate that. So beyond looking like a choppy set of pictures it’s going to have its color greatly washed out.
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Obvious? (Score:2)
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Can't speak for parrots, but my labrador found shows from the airport with dogs sniff-testing baggage and passengers highly interesting. She'd watch very attentively while the dogs were doing their thing, and as soon as the dogs weren't on the screen she'd lose interest.
BirdyCam (Score:5, Interesting)
Around 2008 I had a budgie, but I sometimes had to take work trips. I had someone to feed him and check on him, but I wanted to stay in touch. So I set up a camera at the cage. The computer was right in his line of sight about 6 feet away (he lived in my home office, where I normally worked). Given the services of the day, I created him a Skype account and set it to only (and automatically) answer calls from friends, me being his only friend, of course.
He LOVED IT and was always very excited when I called him. Sometimes he looked confused about not being able to see me, but he loved hearing me.
He had a HUGE window to the balcony, but I was able to observe his typical behavior when I spied om him. Which was: he was pretty bored and just kinda sat around all the time. Play with toys occasionally, but he was mainly interested in me. Which makes sense since normally I was always physically in the room with him.
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>> very excited when I called him
Similar experience here. Birds get bonded to you. They are fun pets if you like that kind of interaction, but you have to pay attention to them pretty regularly or they don't do well. It is cool to have a bird sit on your shoulder and demand to be petted. Not as cool if they start preening and shed feathers on you.
Weegies rule (Score:3)
Being from Glasgow myself I wonder how the parrots understand each other as the local accent is so strong.
Well, well, well... (Score:2)
It appears they've nailed the reason for success of the porn online shows vs. porn videos.
My preference (Score:2)
Only Fans for parrots... (Score:2)
Slightly offtopic (Score:2)
But, is an RGB screen the right sort of screen for a parrot?
They don't produce the same range of colours as real life images, but human eyes can't tell the difference because they sample 3 ranges of wavelengths and RGB works on 3 wavelengths that match those ranges. The eyes of other animals sample different wavelengths and have a different number of samples.
Pining for the Fjords (Score:2)
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On the Internet, nobody knows you're a parrot. (Score:2)
Can't believe nobody posted this so far...
i have to rethink bird mirror interaction now (Score:2)