This is just one of many intriguing questions raised by a new and growing strand of research called Animal Computer Interaction (ACI).
Dr Clara Mancini, Research Fellow in The Open University’s Centre for Research in Computing, is a leading exponent of ACI. She is currently working with a commercial company called Retrieva, co-founded by OU alumnus Jon Bryan, on how tracking technology changes the human/dog relationship.
Retrieva sells dog-collars fitted with GPS trackers which display the dog’s movements on a screen similar to a car’s sat nav display, accessed via the owner’s mobile phone or computer.
It also records the data, so owners can get a complete picture of exactly what their dogs get up to when roaming off the leash, or home alone.
'our ethics protocol puts the needs of the animal before the needs of science'
Owners can also use the collar to stop the dog wandering too far, by setting invisible boundaries which trigger an alarm if crossed.
“Dogs need to be off the leash sometimes to keep healthy and not be frustrated, but our society is not very dog-friendly. There are all sort of hazards, traffic, theft or just getting lost,” says Dr Mancini.
The collars provide owners with reassurance. “If your dog is lying injured somewhere you may not be able to find him or her until it is too late. But when he or she is wearing a tracking collar, you can go straight to them and give aid in a timely fashion.
“And if someone steals the dog and tries to cut the collar off, it automatically triggers an alarm.”
Do dogs need privacy?
Great for the owners, but how do the dogs feel about having their privacy invaded? This is a serious question for researchers because ACI – taking its cue from human-computer interaction – sees animals as active participants, rather than objects to be acted on.
“I have been told ‘animals have no sense of privacy’,” says Dr Mancini. “But a sense of privacy has an evolutionary basis which is related to security, safety and social integration, so why should it be restricted to humans?
“Animals giving birth, for example, will want to go off somewhere alone because during birth they and their babies are at their most vulnerable.”
The research is suggesting that the collars change the behaviour of both dogs and owners.
Owners reported that knowing the location of their dog when off the lead made them less anxious, and resulted in the dog being given more freedom and becoming more contented.
They said their dogs were more relaxed because they themselves were more relaxed. Dogs also returned to their owners spontaneously and more frequently, even though – or possibly because – their names were not being called so often.
The initial findings published by Dr Mancini and her OU colleague Dr Janet van der Linden were nominated for Best Paper Award at the Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp) international conference held in the US in September. Read the full paper at Open Research Online.
Research on the interaction between animals and technology is not new. In the 1990s a computerised milking parlour was developed which allows a cow to milk herself.
But technology for animals has mushroomed following the development of remote and sensory devices.
User-centred for cats and chickens
Today you can get iPad games for cats and, believe it or not, an electronic ‘chicken jacket’ which allows poultry owners to give their hens a reassuring stroke remotely.
But do they do for the animals what we think they do? Animals’ senses and brains mean they see the world in a different way from us. One of the goals of ACI is to better understand how animals see, think, feel and communicate, so that the technology designed for them is truly ‘user-centred’.
The research will use hypotheses such as that dogs wag their tails symmetrically when they are happy, and asymmetrically when they are unhappy.
“We are developing design frameworks to make sure our technology is completely unobtrusive, so the wearer can move about freely and behave naturally,” says Dr Mancini.
ACI is more than just an academic interest. In a society where many of us think of our pets as part of the family, the potential market for animal-centred technology is huge.
New ethical approach
But the research aims at more than helping manufacturers to design dog-friendly collars or exciting computer games for cats. Dr Mancini and her colleagues are re-writing the rules about the way science works with animals.
They have developed a strict ACI Ethics Protocol which puts the needs of the individual animal before the needs of science – the same approach used for children participating in experiments.
Animals and humans will both benefit from ACI research, says Dr Mancini.
“In some milking systems, cows which don’t successfully engage with the system technology are culled. Wouldn’t it be better for farmers and cows to change the system?
“Our perspective is that you should not expect the animal to adapt to the technology, you should build technology that adapts to the animal.”
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