Martin Christopher Flynn, Muramatsu Akiho, Matsuzawa Tetsuro
Indianapolis Zoological Society, Indianapolis, IN 46222, USA.
Department of Informatics, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.
Animals (Basel). 2022 Jun 28;12(13):1660. doi: 10.3390/ani12131660.
We report on the development and testing of a portable touchscreen apparatus and accompanying software program for primate enrichment, cognitive research, and husbandry applications. For zoos considering using technology to bolster scientific efforts or enhance the welfare of primates in their care, touchscreen activities offer a solution that has a long and proven record of primate use in laboratory settings as well as a history of usage in the zoo world. We review the options that are available for zoos to build their own touchscreen systems and we offer as an alternative our pre-built apparatus, Apex, and primate software suite, ApeTouch, both of which are tailored for use in a zoo setting. The efficacy and utility of these tools are demonstrated in a training study with four macaque groups of different species that were previously naïve to touchscreens. All of the groups in the study learned to use the device and displayed a consistent engagement with the touchscreen tasks over 95 daily sessions of exposure. In the final stage of the training, two of the four groups displayed an above-chance level performance on a numerical sequencing task.
我们报告了一种用于灵长类动物丰富化、认知研究和饲养应用的便携式触摸屏设备及配套软件程序的开发与测试情况。对于考虑使用技术来加强科学研究或提高其所照料灵长类动物福利的动物园而言，触摸屏活动提供了一种解决方案，该方案在实验室环境中对灵长类动物的使用有着悠久且经过验证的记录，在动物园领域也有使用历史。我们回顾了动物园构建自己的触摸屏系统可用的选项，并提供我们预先构建的设备Apex和灵长类动物软件套件ApeTouch作为替代方案，这两者均针对动物园环境进行了定制。在一项针对四组先前对触摸屏不熟悉的不同物种猕猴的训练研究中，展示了这些工具的有效性和实用性。研究中的所有组都学会了使用该设备，并在95次每日接触的触摸屏任务中表现出持续的参与度。在训练的最后阶段，四组中的两组在数字排序任务上表现出高于随机水平的成绩。
