Animals' Entanglement with Technology: a Scoping Review

Research Background and Issues

• Issues or Challenges Identified by the Authors:
  This paper highlights that we have entered a new era of intensive interaction between animals and technology. However, there is still a lack of in-depth research on how animals interact with human-designed technological systems (whether or not these technologies are specifically designed for animals). Despite the increasing application of technology in areas such as health monitoring, entertainment, and training for animals, most systems still place limited emphasis on animals' direct interaction or sensory capabilities.

• Why This Issue is Important:
  With the widespread application of animal-technology interactions (e.g., health monitoring tools, training aids, and environmental enrichment technologies), understanding how to optimize these interactions while simultaneously enhancing animal welfare has become increasingly important. This is not only about the functionality of the technology but also has critical implications for ethical considerations, research design, and multidisciplinary technological applications.

• Research Motivation and Related Work:
  This paper seeks to fill the gap in panoramic reviews of the animal-technology research field, exploring trends, ethical dilemmas, and current limitations in this area. Unlike previous reviews focusing on specific technologies or contexts, this study provides comprehensive coverage across six animal contexts: household pets, farm animals, laboratory animals, wildlife, working animals, and zoo/aquarium animals, thereby forming a systematic knowledge framework.

Solution

• Proposed Methods or Solutions by the Authors:
  Through a systematic review of approximately 800 related studies, the paper proposes an integrated framework to analyze animal-technology interaction from multiple perspectives: "who (researchers and animals), what (types of technology), why (research goals and beneficiaries), and how (design and evaluation methods)."

• Innovative Aspects of the Solution:

  1. Animal User Framework: For the first time, feedback, practical testing, and beneficiaries are used as core indicators to classify animals as "technology users" or "technology experimental subjects."
  2. Cross-Context Analysis: The study identifies that technologies and research goals are often segmented by environmental contexts (e.g., pets focus on toys and health monitoring, zoos focus on cognitive and environmental enrichment).
  3. Multidisciplinary Integration: It emphasizes the intersection of animal welfare and HCI (Human-Computer Interaction), exploring methods to design interactive technologies from a cross-species perspective.

• Implementation Steps and Key Techniques:

  1. Literature Search and Classification: Using systematic search methods (following PRISMA-ScR standards), the study ultimately identified 795 relevant papers and categorized various types of technologies (e.g., screen interaction, sensing devices, sound systems) and goals (e.g., animal health, cognitive training).
  2. Ethics and Testing Evaluation: Analyzing ethical discussions in the papers and whether direct feedback mechanisms for animals were included.
  3. Animal Context Coding: Dividing contexts based on research backgrounds (pets, farms, laboratories, etc.) and conducting quantitative and qualitative analyses of technologies and target tasks.

Research Findings

• Specific Findings:

  1. Technology Classification and Goal Distribution: Eight major technology types (e.g., wearable devices, sensors, visual systems) and twelve primary goals (e.g., cognitive enrichment, environmental enrichment, health monitoring) were identified. For example, the highest proportion of user feedback mechanisms was found in zoo contexts (75% with feedback mechanisms), while the lowest was in wildlife contexts (6.45%).

  2. Typical Context Discoveries: The study clarified the strong correlation between technology and context, such as interactive toys and screen technologies for pets, and health monitoring systems for farm animals.

  3. Ethical and Practical Challenges: Over 47% of studies reported formal ethical reviews, but the review rate was lowest in wildlife and farm contexts (less than 30%), highlighting uneven ethical oversight across contexts.

  4. Animal User Framework: A framework based on feedback, benefits, and practical testing was proposed. Among all reviewed literature, only 22.71% of studies fully met these three criteria and were classified as "animal users."

• Advantages Compared to Existing Solutions:
  This study comprehensively reviews cross-disciplinary animal-technology interaction research, proposing a multi-species user design approach that goes beyond traditional HCI. It is the first to systematically explore how technology directly or indirectly impacts animal welfare. Additionally, its cross-context analysis provides comprehensive references for researchers.

• Experimental or Evaluation Results:
  Through research analysis, the study found:

  • Technologies for pets prioritize feedback and benefits, incorporating more emotional bonds.
  • Technologies in farms and laboratories tend to focus on functional monitoring, with less attention to animals' experiential aspects.
  • Technologies in zoos and entertainment environments most deeply consider animals' enrichment and cognitive needs.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  1. Limitations:

     • The reliance on the ACM Digital Library for research retrieval may limit the diversity of sources, leading to insufficient cross-disciplinary coverage.
     • The focus on English-language literature may overlook global perspectives.
     • Ethical review standards vary by country and field, limiting transparency in reporting.

  2. Future Directions:

     • Expand coverage to non-ACM literature, exploring interdisciplinary research (e.g., biology or agricultural science).
     • Promote standardization of ethical oversight across contexts, particularly in farm and wildlife research.
     • Further investigate multi-sensory interaction technologies to enhance animals' active participation in experiences, especially in "immersive technologies" and "olfactory feedback" domains.

Conclusion

Research on animal-technology interaction is a rapidly evolving multidisciplinary field. The framework and insights proposed in this paper provide significant inspiration for future studies, including how to more effectively focus on animal experiences and feedback in design, introduce adaptable ethical frameworks across contexts, and foster further interdisciplinary collaboration. These efforts will not only benefit animal welfare but also bring richer inspiration and innovation to human technology design.