Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas

While why they use it, we really don't know why they would use this device.

We don't know if they understand the device, but to keep using it implies some level of enrichment, some level of understanding.

Later on, I then moved to Finland, in Helsinki, and I was visiting the zoo, and I started to realize that many other zoo animals also have little control over their lives.

And so I expanded my work, and I started working with white-faced Saki monkeys.

These are a tiny species of monkeys, typically live about mid-range in the rainforest and rather elusive.

I built them this tunnel device that, again, similar to the dog device, whenever they enter, would play them different audio and different sorts of videos.

I gave them these two devices over several different months, and what I found was fascinating.

We found that these monkeys significantly like watching underwater barracudas and jellyfish and mealworms, which makes more sense because they eat mealworms.

And what they like listening to is really heavy beeping traffic noise, which makes completely no sense.

And like I mentioned before, it's not only about what they use it for, but also the impact on them.

So we started to look at also the changes in their behaviors.

Does using this device change something about them?

And what we found was that they significantly reduced their scratching behavior, which can be seen as a stressful behavior.

And so we start to get onto something more powerful here, that giving animals technology not only gives them a choice and ability to control their lives, but it also gives them something which can impact their well-being and improves their health.

Now, as I mentioned before, we don't really know why animals use technology.

Is it because it gives them a choice?

Is it because of the stimuli or videos or audio that it gives?

Is it something totally different?

We don't really know.

We can't ask them a questionnaire the same as we can do when we do research with humans.