🌳 I’m excited to announce that we have published our paper outlining our protocol for training primates to forage in virtual environments! Out now #openaccess www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... - ThreadSky

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emmasmcewen.bsky.social • 70 days ago

🌳 I’m excited to announce that we have published our paper outlining our protocol for training primates to forage in virtual environments! Out now #openaccess

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376635724001414#fig0005

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emmasmcewen.bsky.social•70 days ago

🍎 Co-led by @realprimatthias.bsky.social, we present our touchscreen training method using the freely available APExplorer software for #chimpanzees and #orangutans to learn to navigate virtual environments and ‘collect’ virtual fruit, in Zoo Leipzig/MPI-EVA WKPRC and @edinburghzoo.bsky.social/BRU

emmasmcewen.bsky.social•70 days ago

🦧 We developed this method while working with some experienced chimpanzees, orang-utans with no prior experience with touchscreens, and chimpanzees in a group setting, each presenting their own training challenges!

emmasmcewen.bsky.social•70 days ago

🎮 There's still a lot we don't know about how these virtual worlds are represented by non-human primates, but training the basic gameplay mechanisms is the first step towards investigating this and other cognitive phenomena!

emmasmcewen.bsky.social•70 days ago

🏞️ We've already seen that virtual environments can be used to study spatial cognition in great apes (https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.abm4754), and we think that much more can be done with this technology

emmasmcewen.bsky.social•70 days ago

🐶 We hope that others can use our training protocol to implement virtual environment research with more individuals and across more species, and we encourage using and adapting our flexible yet structured method

emmasmcewen.bsky.social•70 days ago

🐒 Since starting this work, our training protocol has been used with more great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas) across several zoos, as well as the Capuchin monkeys in Edinburgh Zoo (watch this space to see how they’ve been getting on with @amiscov.bsky.social and Amanda Seed)

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