They are the charlatans of the animal kingdom.
Now, researchers have discovered that parrots even enjoy live video calls with friends.
A new study from the University of Glasgow suggests that pet parrots taught to make video calls on Facebook Messenger prefer live chatting to listening to recorded messages.
And scientists believe this is because these intelligent birds can distinguish between live and pre-recorded videos.
They said the findings could pave the way for a future with an “animal-centric Internet”, which would allow pets to interact with each other, as well as with humans, using technology.
Pet parrots given the option to video call each other or watch pre-recorded videos of other birds will jump at the chance to chat live, new research shows
The study, led by animal-computer interaction specialists at the University of Glasgow, gave tablets to nine parrots and their owners to explore the potential of video chats to “extend the social life of birds”.
Lead author Dr Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas said: “Working closely with keepers to design the study has given us new insights into how these intelligent birds react to the complex stimuli that digital tablets can provide.”
“The appearance of ‘liveliness’ really seemed to make a difference in the parrots’ interaction with their screens.
“Their behavior when interacting with another live bird often reflected behaviors they would have with other parrots in real life, which was not the case in the pre-recorded sessions.
‘Some keepers believed their parrots were able to differentiate between sessions.
“One told us that his bird liked to vocalize with another live bird, but quickly lost interest when there was no response to his calls during the pre-recorded videos.”
For the study, which also involved a team from Northeastern University in the US, the researchers wanted to explore the online social lives of nine pet parrots.
It builds on previous research by this team that showed that parrots who video-called their friends felt less lonely.
Each bird had a profile created with its photo and tablets were provided to its owners so the birds could make video calls on Facebook Messenger.
Experimental setup: A (trained) parrot is shown in its home environment with the recording device, tablet, stand, and bell it used to indicate that it wants a video call.
Scientists believe these intelligent birds, which often suffer from loneliness in captivity, can distinguish between live and pre-recorded videos.
To investigate how the parrots would respond to the choice, the researchers provided their keepers with tablets displaying large glowing buttons showing images of the other birds in the study. The birds’ keepers then trained them to initiate Facebook Messenger calls by ringing a bell when they wanted to interact with the screen.
The parrots were trained to ring a bell when they wanted to interact with the screen and also participated in a “meet and greet” session where they met other birds.
Over six months, the birds had access to 12 video sessions, six of which were live calls with their Facebook friends, while the remaining six involved watching pre-recorded videos of their bird contacts.
The findings showed that parrots preferred live chats to pre-recorded sessions, spending a total of 561 minutes on live calls compared to 142 minutes playing video.
The birds initiated 65 songs out of a possible 108 in the live phase, but only 40 out of 108 in the prerecorded sessions, the team said.
According to the findings, 77 percent of caregivers said their parrot responded positively to the live calls and 70 percent said the same to the prerecorded video.
Dr Hirskyj-Douglas said: “Our previous research had shown that parrots appear to benefit from the opportunity to video call each other, which could help reduce the mental and physical toll that living in domestic situations can take on them.
‘In the wild, they live in flocks and socialize with each other constantly.
The nine parrots (P1 to P9) had access to 12 video sessions, six of which were live calls with their Facebook friends (top), while the remaining six involved watching pre-recorded videos of their bird contacts (bottom). . The birds initiated 65 songs out of a possible 108 in the live phase, but only 40 out of 108 in the prerecorded sessions, the team said.
After a “meet and greet” session in which the birds were introduced via video chat, each of them had open access to the system for 12 sessions for a total of 36 hours. They will be able to make a maximum of two calls in each session, with a maximum duration of three hours
The findings could help guide the future direction of the emerging “animal Internet,” where technology could “empower” animals to interact with humans.
“As pets, they are often kept alone, which can cause them to develop negative behaviors such as excessive pacing or feather plucking.”
Although it was a small study and no definitive conclusions can be drawn, the early results are convincing, according to Dr. Hirskyj-Douglas.
She said: “The Internet has great potential to give animals the ability to interact with each other in new ways, but the systems we build to help them do this must be designed around their specific physical and mental needs and capabilities.”
“Studies like this could help lay the foundation for a truly animal-centric Internet.”
The findings will be presented at the Association of Computing Machinery’s CHI conference on human factors in computing systems.
