- December 26, 2014
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Monkeys, bears, penguins, and other fauna, just love to touch computer screens, says the correspondent BBC Future.
Esme, Molly Quinn and Emily live in Austria. Most of all they love mushrooms, corn, strawberries and play games on their plates. These four gamers – Red-footed tortoise contained in the Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna.
The biologist Julia Mueller Paula and her colleagues tried to find out if the reptile to learn to pass the test for spatial perception, and this was used equipped with a touch the computer screen. In half of the bugs had to touch the nose of the blue circle on the right rather than the left side of the screen. In the other half of the test they had to choose, on the contrary, the left rather than the right circle. If the choice was made correctly, the subjects received a treat.
The four turtles have learned to use touch screens in the preparatory phase before the start of the experiment. But only two of them – Esme and Queen – to sort out how to use the screen to earn food. Paula Mueller can not explain why Molly and Emily could not solve this problem, especially considering that “up to this point they showed stable results comparable to the success of the results of Esme and Queen.” As a result, the experience was able to learn some interesting facts about the spatial perception of reptiles. And experiment clearly demonstrated the benefits of touch screens for the study of thought processes in animals.
Turtles is not limited. Take, for example, the pygmy chimpanzee (the bonobo) named Kanzi – the exchanged thirties male lives in the company of their own kind in the Fund apes in Des Moines in the US state of Iowa. He learned to communicate with researchers using the touch screen, operating approximately 400 leksigrammami (icons representing words).
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Psychologist Jennifer Vonk for several years enjoyed sensor technologies for thinking of studying bears. In 2012, she wrote in an article in the journal Animal Behaviour, that although numerical thinking and is one of the most well-studied areas of cognitive science, most of the experiments in this area carried out on socially active animals and birds: for example, humans, monkeys, dolphins, crows or parrots. Vonk with another scientist, Michael Beran, found that the ability to score may develop during social interactions – for example, when you want to count the number of members of a group. So they decided to pay attention to the Himalayan bears, large predators single. If numeracy is not related to the social aspect, the bears, in theory, should not have any problems when solving arithmetic problems were.
In the experiment was attended by three of the Himalayan bear mobile zoo in Wilmer, Alabama – Brutus, Dusty and Bella. They were trained with the help of specially protected screen, able to withstand such brutal exploitation by users. Touching noses desired area on the monitor Bears rewarded with music and delicacy. They successfully passed the test, showing that the ability to account does not depend on the social activity of the animal. And, as in the case of bugs, this experience once again stressed how useful tool in the arsenal of scientists became the touch screen.
The increasingly important role these devices play in ensuring the welfare of animals in captivity. Contained in the zoo primates so there is no need to solve a variety of problems for finding food, shelter from predators, the use of tools as their wild counterparts. They are given toys or puzzles to keep thinking on our toes. Why not apply for this iPad? In 2012, Helen Bustrom working on his master’s thesis, plates issued six orangutans and chimpanzees 10 at the Houston Zoo. Can the leader of the tablet market to enrich the lives of primates?
Monkeys like glowing toys. They were especially impressed by the program with rich colors and sound effects. As is the case with humans, tablets most strongly interested in young chimpanzees and orangutans, who used the highest number of nine programs offered to them.
Among the adult female monkeys have shown more interest in the iPad, than males. Unlike the young, adults have a clear preference for certain programs. Females are also more deftly than males use these devices. Bustrom says that this observation is consistent and habits of wild monkeys. Female chimpanzee, for example, better and more males used hand tools to extract termites.
One of the main findings of the researchers was that the iPad and similar devices it can be configured so that they best meet the needs of individual monkeys. Zookeepers thus able to diversify at least one aspect of the daily routine of their charges.
iPad are also used for entertainment penguins in the aquarium of Long Beach in California. Two young male, Jeremy and Newsom, especially strongly imbued with his proposed toy – Game for Cats (“Game for Cats”). “Closely following the virtual mouse Newsom again and again tried to catch it with his beak – wrote the superintendent of penguins in the aquarium blog. – He especially liked squeak, which published the “catch” mouse. “Newsom has established an absolute record Penguin: 1600 points.
Interestingly, and orangutans, and chimpanzees, and humans, and even penguins games on touch screens attract primarily younger generation. Perhaps the young can afford to spend more time at the games, because they still do not need to do other daily activities. Perhaps their growing brain learns new tasks better, or they develop systems of perception more bright colors and interesting sounds than adults.
Whatever it was, one thing is clear: the computer games all species of fauna submissive.
Read the original of this article in English on the site of BBC Future.
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