Towards the automatic observation and coding of simple behaviours in ethological experiments

Precise observation of the behaviour of subjects in ethological experiments is a highly resource demanding process. Trained observers carefully identify all behavior elements, called coding, either in real-time or by watching recorded video footage. Different observers can code slightly differently, have disagreements, and, even a highly skilled observer can make mistakes. In order to improve the efficiency and accuracy, and to reduce the resource needs of the coding process, many computerized solutions have been introduced already. These solutions can not only save significant time and effort by using automatic timestamps, efficient footage and data handling, etc., but provide sophisticated statistics and analysis features. Anyhow, most of the coding aiding systems in use cannot determine the exhibited behaviour elements by themselves, it still remains the task of the human observer. In this short paper, we propose the basic concepts of a method capable of automatically coding behaviour elements in a simulated environment, without the need for a skilled observer person. The method was designed to evaluate simulated dog-human interaction experiments, without having any information on the inner states of the simulation, based solely on the spatial position data of the participants. A preliminary evaluation was performed, showing that the method is capable of correctly recognizing the behaviour elements exhibited by the agent.