Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas

So I got my thinking head on, and me and my collaborators, we started to build a screen-based system on a tablet, which had profile photos of different parrots, and then taught parrots how to trigger the video calls by using their tongues on the screens.

So they ring a bell to get over the caregiver.

Hi.

We then gave parrots a system for a couple of months, and what we found was they used the system a lot, similar to my dog.

Because they had a choice of friends, we also couldn't look at who they called, and what we found is that they actually had favorite friends, in the same way that me and you have favorite friends we like to call.

We also found that they did more calls the more they were called in, so there's an element of sociality here then.

We then looked at what behaviors they did within the calls, and they did such vast and wonderful different behaviors.

For instance, they groomed together, they also played together, they showed each other their toys, they danced together, and they even sing together.

But still we face the problem that sometimes parrots want to trigger a call and the person had to set up the system or the other parrot wasn't available in the same way we were in France and they're not always available.

And so I started to wonder, could we change the system?

In essence, does it matter if the other parrot is live in real time?

Can we just play videos instead?

And so I modified the system.

I rebuilt it and put in these video versions of parrots.

So these were videos of parrots in video calls rather than live calls.

I then introduced the parrots to these new video versions and gave them back the system to use.

I was asking here, can a parrot tell the difference between a live and a prerecorded version of the system?

And what I found was when we gave parrots the system, there was an immediate behavior change.

Parrots reduced the amount of times they triggered calls within the system and also reduced the amount of time they spent in the calls.

And this wasn't a gradual, this was instantaneous as soon as we took away the live interaction.