Measuring Discrimination Abilities of Monk Parakeets Between Discreet and Continuous Quantities Through a Digital Life Enrichment Application

Abstract

Al Aïn et al. [1] measured the discrimination abilities between discrete and continuous quantities of three African Grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus), showing that their accuracy in choosing between two small quantities was inversely correlated with the ratio between the difference between the two quantities and the largest quantity. Generalizing the experimental protocol described and implemented by Al Aïn et al. [1] to other subjects or species present some difficulties. The fact that the experimenter knows which answer was expected from the subjects is not an issue in their study because it was previously verified that the three subjects were unable to read such cues from human experimenters, but it means that the replication of such protocol is limited to individuals (from the same or from other species) which inability to read cues has been previously demonstrated. Beyond such a weakness, the cost of the experimental set-up and of the analysis of the video recordings of the experiments reduces the probability that such a protocol will be replicated with other subjects from the same species, or with subjects from the many other species of parrots existing around the world.Touchscreens have been successfully used for experiments in life enrichment [4,11,20] and in Comparative Psychology [7], with individuals from various nonhuman species. Could digital life enrichment techniques allow to replicate Al Aïn et al. [1]'s results at a lower cost, but with a better precision, and less potential experimental bias? Which additional advantages could a digital variant bring? Inspired by previous informal Digital Life Enrichment experiments such as a Cockatoo playing the video game Candy Crush (Figure 3), or Monk Parakeets learning to use touch interfaces by playing music on it (Figures 4 and 5), we designed, tested and used a web application InCA-WhatIsMore to digitally replicate and extend Al Aïn et al. [1]'s experimental setup. We obtained similar results to that of Ain et al. for two individuals of a distinct species of parrots, Monk Parakeets (Myiopsitta Monachus), using an experimental protocol with increased guarantees against potential experimental biases, at a lower set-up cost, with additional advantages brought by the digital context, such as automatic logging and increased subject's agency. After describing a selection of concepts and results in the research area of