After going traversing through the history of technology used in human-cat interaction, I speculated the design for a cat communicator touchscreen device, in the form of a thought experiment. This article will further discuss how this device will work and a subsequent method to measure its effectiveness with feline animals in the zoo as well, and it can help our furry friends fight against mental health issues like depression. I also got to understand their taxonomy, morphology, ecology, behaviour and cognition, all thanks to the wonderful Animal Computer Interaction (ACI) class in Indiana University!

Introduction

Over the last 50 years, our relationship has blossomed with our pet companions with the number of domestic pets being increased exponentially: Half of the US households have atleast one companion animal, with 220 million being household cats, as compared to the mere 22% in 1967 [2]. I found it interesting how a professor of animal sciences at CSU, Bernard Collin, even stated in his book ‘The Clean Pet Food Revolution’ about how “the bond initially based on pragmatic symbiosis has turned into a bond based on love” [1]. According to a poll of 2,000 cat owners, an average American spends $25,304 on their cats during their life — This includes food, toys and medical care [2]. This shows that as we human owners have become increasingly affluent and urbanized, we are also able to shower this love on our four legged fur ball friends, cats with little effort.

Background of Animal computer interaction: Has technology been used with non-primates and wild cats?

Various studies that have been implemented in beta testing mode and even implemented in zoos, have shown that many non-primate species can be trained to use computerized screens. Take for example, Professor Christopher talked about how animals like horses can use their nose on a touchscreen tablet to ‘match the sample’ dots game, while dolphins can make selections from a “menu” by directing their echolocative clicks towards symbols rather than making contact with the screen.

What about household cats?: Understanding these pet devices’ input and output possibilities

Based on the existing tech devices in the form of interactive catnips, smart collars and gps tracking chips embedded toys, I also found out how different kinds of sensory, mental and auditory experiences are captured for feline animals, and how it can be used to form a smart device for my pet cat as well.

Image source modified in Figma from Yonezawa’s cat device visual model, 2009

The above image depicts the pet input in the form of the pet experience measured using the sensors for each different 5 sensors. Pet output is viewed in the form of the pet reaction in terms of activity, location and the voice analyser.

Are these forms of Enrichment?

Yes, all of the aforementioned tech explorations for captive and household animals are done for enrichment purposes i.e improving the quality of life of any animal including a cat’s daily life. There are 5 types of enrichment available for them: Structural, Nutritional, Sensory, Social and Cognitive enrichment. Here, Cognitive enrichment involves providing quality care in a way that it changes the perception of general care from surviving to thriving. It also provides an opportunity for domestic cats to behave in a way that is normal for them and helps prevent behaviour problems.

This can be done by giving them feeding puzzles, scratching surfaces, sensory games, controlled indoor tech experiences, and social play with pet owners and other animals [6]. Moreover, this encourages curiosity, problem-solving, and learning in cats, and can be quite rewarding for these cute companions who have brain intelligence comparable to a 3 year old human toddler [7].

How do we measure cognitive enrichment?

As per the 4 outcome model (Meehan & Mench, 2007), the most promising strategy to assess cognitive enrichment is to focus on the measurement of 4 key welfare indicators: anxiety/depression, boredom, apathy, and flow.

Boredom is found to be difficult to measure because it is linked to both high levels of activity (10) and inactivity (8), also is often confused with apathy. Flow on the other hand is facilitated by being absorbed in a task, as [10] suggested it could be measured by how easily an animal is “distracted”. Similar to human flow, where a person’s mind is stretched to its limits in an effort to find ways to accomplish something difficult. This links with my personal motivation, which is to help cats deal with boredom better by keep their curiosity intact and creative juice running to get them out of their depressed state.

The 4 outcome model links skill training and challenge level in a similar way to how we learnt about the active-passive human-animal interaction tech models in one of the ACI classes taught by Professor Christopher in IU Bloomington. Image source: Modified in Figma

Loneliness and depression in cats

Contrary to popular belief, domesticated cats have evolved enough to crave companionship, often forming strong bonds with humans and sometimes even other pets. In case of any of their fellow cats or human owners die, they become sad and show certain signs of depression. This includes destructive behaviour, loss of appetite, change in litter box habits, lethargy and excessive self-grooming. This is what happened to one of my aunt’s pet cat — He couldn’t survive the loss of his owner after her demise and was depressed to such a level when she was gone, that even with a healthy physical state, he died subsequently. This impacted all of us greatly as we didn’t expect this at all.

My area of interest: Cognitive bias testing for cognitive enrichment

In cognitive bias testing, animals can be trained to associate one stimulus cue with a positive outcome, and the other one with a negative result. An ambiguous stimulus cue is then introduced, and the response of suppose, the cat, to this cue is recorded as ‘pessimistic’ or ‘optimistic’ depending on how they respond in the previously trained negative or positive manner. One of the major applications of cognitive bias testing to animals can be positive reinforcement learning sessions like clicker teaching.

Source: The physical talking buttons map laid out by a pet owner for his cat. Source: FluentPet

This form of training has been scientifically shown to get the fastest long-term results as it rewards good behavior and ignores or redirects the undesired behaviors, while keeping the process fun for the cat. This involves putting physical buttons with words/sentences kept next to the appropriate places in the house to make the cat associate a certain action to a particular sound coming from the button, and most of the times, these cats are able to mimic these sounds as well. For example, a button which has “food” written on it is next to the cat food, “poop” one is kept next to litter, etc [12].

Taking this further, a Designer Nora O’ Murchú recently developed Cat++, a ‘meow-esque’ visual live coding language based on cats’ behavior, with random series of 8-bit-esque animations to express their emotions [14]. A scientific research company, Temptations Lab also demonstrated how a smart collar Catterbox, can record pet cat’s utterances, translate them into human words and say them aloud [13].

While a good approach to explore alternative communication methods with the feline animals, this smart collar idea seemed to me a play toy for the human owner, rather than the cat who has no idea what her/his meows are being converted into. Thus I speculated a design fiction situation: what if there were talking buttons in a touchscreen interface which could help cats in clicker training and learning to communicate their sad or happy feelings to the humans around them? What if two cats could speak aloud their thoughts with each other using these talking buttons as well?

Humans making sense of these 2 cats’ conversation, Image source: Modified from Catterbox

My proposed device: An augmentative and alternative communicator (AAC) touchscreen for cats as an alternative to talking buttons

A speculative design of my cat using the touchscreen device with the talking clicker buttons, which will redirect him to press the action he wants to do. Source: work made in Figma

What can this device do?

The device will consist of the iPad and a software app initially, which can be used by feline owners to monitor the feelings of their cats in order to understand and empathise with them better. It is useful in scenarios when the owners are with the pets, away from home or even after their deaths, or when they are being cared for by other people. Cats are used to a certain lifestyle, play methods, food behaviours etc, which can be better understood by these new owners through these AAC touchscreens. This will involve a transition from usage of physical manipulanda of buttons to digital interfaces.

The cat’s interaction data can be recorded from the daily activity of using these touchscreens and can be converted into conversations and a daily journal can be formed. This can be used when the owner visits the doctor in case of any medical problems faced by the cat, and there is a ‘verbal data’ available now to give the vet more context, apart from the general health statistics of the cat. This can be further used to determine the relationships between two or more cats, and to improve the welfare of cats living together at home.​​

Ethnograms like these will be recorded automatically in the touchscreen along with the most carried out actions by a particular cat on a daily basis, and the owner can understand if anything is wrong with the cat at a particular time, and if something triggered a specific behaviour.

Forming diary entries like the above journal for cats on a regular basis, Source: GI

In fact similar programs and cognitive developmental and behavioural monitoring apps like these can be included in my touchscreen device as a living record of a cat’s characteristics and behaviors, with varying types of customizations for different breeds and their current moods. This in turn will be helpful to even zookeepers who can manage both the emotional and physical needs of the wild cats in captivity in a better way while giving a positive reinforcement reward system for the cats to interact with the touchscreen devices too. In conclusion, I would want to test this in various situations like cat animal shelters, hospitals, zoos and household scenarios to do real-time usability testing on the effectiveness of this device and build upon better iterations for their betterment.

And that is why my dear readers, if you ever get a chance, do try taking any ACI course in your local or online community :) You and your furry friend won’t regret it for sure!

Special thanks to my cute kitten tuna, playing with dots, cursor clicks and code on my iMac

References

1. Ward, E., & Oven, A. (2019). The Clean Pet Food Revolution: How Better Pet Food Will Change the World. Lantern Publishing & Media.
2. The Cat Population. (2022, September 27). StreetPaws. Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://streetpaws.org/2017/07/25/the-cat-population/
3. Ellis, S. L. (2009, November). Environmental Enrichment: Practical Strategies for Improving Feline Welfare. Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, 11(11), 901–912. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfms.2009.09.011
4. Technology for Cats and Their People • Feline Engineering • Blog. (2019, August 9). Feline Engineering. Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://felineengineering.com/blog/technology-for-cats/
5. Enrichment Ideas for Your Cat. (2022, July 7). The Spruce Pets. https://www.thesprucepets.com/enrichment-ideas-for-your-cat-4588682
6. Bhatnagar, S. B. (n.d.). ACI Midterm Report. Indiana University.
7. The Intelligent Cat — Cats International. (n.d.). https://catsinternational.org/the-intelligent-cat/
8. Clark, F. E. (2017). Cognitive enrichment and welfare: Current approaches and future directions. Animal Behavior and Cognition, 4(1), 52–71. https://doi.org/10.12966/abc.05.02.2017
9. Hunger, C. (2022). How Stella Learned to Talk: The Groundbreaking Story of the World’s First Talking Dog (Reprint). William Morrow Paperbacks.
10. Yonezawa, K., Miyaki, T., & Rekimoto, J. (2009). Cat@Log. Proceedings of the International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology — ACE ’09. https://doi.org/10.1145/1690388.1690414
11. Cat social cognition. (n.d.). AAAS. https://www.science.org/content/article/cats-rival-dogs-many-tests-social-smarts-anyone-brave-enough-study-them
12. Pons, P., & Jaen, J. (2016). Towards the Creation of Interspecies Digital Games. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. https://doi.org/10.1145/2851581.2892381
13. Clegg I. L. K. (2018). Cognitive Bias in Zoo Animals: An Optimistic Outlook for Welfare Assessment. Animals : an open access journal from MDPI, 8(7), 104. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani8070104
14. “Cat++” Is a Visual Live-Coding Language Based on Feline Behavior. (2016, March 21). Vice. https://www.vice.com/en/article/kbn5qe/cat-visual-coding-language
15. Markowitz, H., & Eckert, K. (2008). Giving Power to Animals. Mental Health and Well-Being in Animals, 201–209. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470384947.ch14