Animal-centered design of digital interactive environmental enrichment for zoo-housed capuchin monkeys

The ability to display important species-specific behaviour plays a crucial part in the well-being of zoo animals. Next to designing suitable habitats, environmental enrichment is often provided by zoos to facilitate and meet the behavioural and physical needs of animals. However, creating continuously stimulating, engaging environments to promote agency and exploration can be challenging and time consuming for zoos, especially when working with highly intelligent species.<br/>Incorporating digital applications into enrichment design provides flexible and innovative ways to expand the possibilities to create enrichment that allows for longer-term novelty effects, multiple and altering interactions, as well as trigger new dynamics such as social interaction and/or collaboration between individuals. This multi-year study explores the use of animal computer interactions for the purpose of designing environmental enrichment for zoo-housed capuchin monkeys and explores how the animals themselves can be part of the design process. In this animal-centered approach, the species’ ethological needs and species-typical behaviour are integrated into the development of enrichment prototypes. Furthermore, co-design and evaluation of individual interactions with the prototypes shape the next steps of the design process. Rather than enforcing human-like actions, we focused on tangible devices triggering more species-natural actions like pounding, swinging, or picking. This collaboration between Apenheul and research group HMI combines both worlds of ethology and animal computer interaction and sets new and exciting steps towards creating (digital) environmental enrichment that supports animal agency and designing zoo environments for animals to thrive in.