Measuring Discrimination Abilities of Monk Parakeets Between Discreet and Continuous Quantities Through a Digital Life Enrichment Application

Abstract

Ain et al. [1] measured three African Grey (Psittacus Erithacus) parrots’ discrimination abilities between discrete and continuous quantities. Some features of their experimental protocol make it difficult to apply to other subjects and/or species without introducing a risk for some bias, as subjects could read cues from the experimenter (even though the study’s subjects probably did not). Can digital life enrichment techniques permit us to replicate their results with other species with less risk for experimental bias, with a better precision, and at lower cost? Inspired by previous informal digital life enrichment experiments with parrots, we designed and tested a web application to digitally replicate and extend Ain et al.’s experimental setup. We were able to obtain similar results to theirs for two individuals from a distinct species of parrots, Monk Parakeets (Myiopsitta Monachus), with increased guarantees against potential experimental biases, in a way which allows the replication of such experiments at larger scale and at a much lower cost.