CreatureConnect: Exploring Shared Control of Multimodal Displays Between People and Lemurs

Paper Title

CreatureConnect: Exploring Shared Control of Multimodal Displays Between People and Lemurs

Publication Info

• Topic area: Shared control in animal–visitor interactions using multimodal technology.
• Keywords: Animal–computer interaction, human–computer interaction, shared control, zoo enrichment, lemur interaction, visitor engagement, multimodal displays, animal welfare, cross-species collaboration, conservation education.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Existing zoo technologies focus on either animals or visitors, limiting opportunities for mutual interaction. Little is known about how control should be distributed between species and how this affects both animals and visitors.
• Significance: Understanding shared control can improve animal welfare, enhance visitor education and empathy, and create more meaningful animal–visitor interactions in zoos.
• Motivation and related work: Previous studies have shown that technologies can enrich zoo animals’ lives and improve visitor experiences, but most systems are unidirectional or focus on one species. Shared control mechanisms remain underexplored, particularly their effects on both animals and humans.

Solution

• Proposed approach: CreatureConnect, a dual-device system enabling shared control of multimodal stimuli (visual, auditory, olfactory) between red-ruffed lemurs and zoo visitors.
• Novelty:
  1. Introduced a shared-control system for cross-species interaction in a zoo setting.
  2. Examined the effects of different control conditions (visitor-only, lemur-only, shared, no control) on both species.
  3. Demonstrated how shared control enhances visitor engagement, education, empathy, and overall experience.
  4. Challenged assumptions that more control for animals automatically improves welfare.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Developed a proximity-based interface for lemurs and a touchscreen slider for visitors.
  • Designed the system to present bimodal stimuli (randomly selected combinations of visual, auditory, and olfactory cues).
  • Conducted a 20-day field study at Blair Drummond Safari Park, observing 541 lemur interactions, 16,139 visitors, and analyzing 696 questionnaires.
  • Compared lemur and visitor interactions across five conditions: baseline, visitor-only control, lemur-only control, shared control, and no control.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Lemurs interacted with the system for an average of 24.64 minutes/day, with 33.81 interactions/day.
  • Visitors spent significantly more time at the enclosure and reported higher engagement, education, empathy, and overall experience in shared-control conditions.
  • Lemurs preferred high-intensity visual (59%) and olfactory (67%) stimuli but medium-intensity auditory stimuli (53%).
  • Visitors also preferred high-intensity stimuli across all modes.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • Shared control outperformed all other conditions in visitor engagement, education, empathy, and overall experience.
  • Lemurs spent more time near the system when it was active compared to baseline conditions.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Data collected included lemur interaction logs, visitor questionnaires, and observational data.
  • Statistical analyses (e.g., ANOVA, chi-squared tests) revealed significant differences in interaction patterns and visitor outcomes across conditions.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Study duration (20 days) may not capture long-term effects or learning by lemurs.
  • Control conditions were alternated daily, potentially hindering lemurs’ ability to form associations.
  • Did not measure physiological markers of animal welfare (e.g., cortisol levels).
  • Future work should explore longer-term studies, additional species, and more complex control mechanisms.

Summary

CreatureConnect introduces a novel shared-control system for cross-species interaction, allowing red-ruffed lemurs and zoo visitors to jointly control multimodal stimuli. The study found that shared control significantly enhanced visitor engagement, education, empathy, and overall experience, while lemurs showed preferences for specific stimulus intensities. The findings challenge the assumption that more control for animals always leads to better outcomes and highlight the importance of balancing control between species. This research advances understanding of shared agency in animal–computer and human–computer interaction, offering insights for designing future zoo technologies that benefit both animals and visitors.