InCA: [In]teractions with [C]omputers for [A]nimals

2.1 Short Term

2.2 Long tem

3.1 Humans

1. Active
   

   Name	Role	Main Application	Theme	From
   Jérémy Barbay	Researcher	https://incalab.cl	Psycho Informatics	2012
   Fabian Jaña	CS Engineering Thesis	https://comparefast.incalab.cl	Adaptive Difficulty	[2022-04-11 Mon]
   Cristobal Sepulveda	CS Master	https://whatismore.incalab.cl	Central Backend and Semi-Automatized Analysis	[2022-04-18 Mon]
   Camila Labarca	CS Engineering Thesis	https://comboard.incalab.cl	Logable Communication Board	[2022-06-30 Thu]
   Dankos Lobos	CS Intern	https://pop.incalab.cl	Ethical study of the limits of abilities	[2022-08-02 Tue]
   Brandon Pena	CS Engineering Thesis	https://bigkeys.incalab.cl	Scalable and Adaptable Keyboard for OATHs	[2022-08-22 Mon]
   Daniel Freire Fernandez	CS Engineering Thesis	https://pop.incalab.cl	Ethical study of the limits of abilities	[2022-08-26 Fri]
   Abraham Oquiche Avila	CS Intern	https://trackthenumber.incalab.cl	Citizen Science Study of Working Memory in OATHs	[2023-09-30 Sat]
   Catalina Castillo	Artist		Logo and Illustrations	[2023-11-23 Thu]
   Tiare	Artist		Logo and Illustrations	[2023-11-23 Thu]

2. Past
   

   Name	Level	Application	Theme	From	To
   Giovanni Castiglioni	Electrical Intern	InCA-ActiveFloor	Touch Interface via Computer Vision	[2022-08-02 Tue]	[2022-11-25 Fri]
   Erick Lemus	Engineering Thesis	https://memory.incalab.cl	Animal Memory Models	[2021-04-22 Thu]	[2022-05-16 Mon]
   Patricio López Taulis	Engineering Thesis	https://whichoneis.incalab.cl	Masked Associative Testing	[2021-04-22 Thu]	[2022-05-04 Wed]
   Bryan Riveros	Engineering Thesis	https://train.incalab.cl	Spaced Repetition	[2021-04-16 Fri]	[2022-04-20 Wed]

3.2 Other than Humans

1. Active
   

   Name	Gender	Species	Birth date
   Lorenzo	Male	Quaker Parrot	2016
   Tina	Female	Quaker Parrot	2018
   Number Two	Male	Chicken	2022
   Roussette	Female	Chicken	2022
   Negrita	Female	Chicken	2022
   7 Chicks	Mixed	Chicken	2022-10

4.1 Active

1. https://whatismore.incalab.cl
   

   A simple application for Masked Comparative Testing, presenting the user with a small amount (e.g. 2 to 4) quantities (e.g. two dice faces, or two recibients filled with a liquid) and requesting to select the largest one, detecting which one is touched on the touch interface, and indicates by visual, sound and/or vibration if correct or wrong, and storing in a log all the details of the sequence of interactions. (gitlab,server)

2. https://comparefast.incalab.cl
   

   A refactoring and extension of https://whatismore.incalab.cl, taking more precise measurements of the answering times of the subjects, and attempting to adapt the difficulty automatically (as opposed to leaving it up to a guardian).

3. https://pop.incalab.cl
   

   Loggable "Pop the balloon" application, to extend the study of discriminating abilities started with InCA-WhatIsMore to the study of discriminating INabilities in a ethic way.

4. https://comboard.incalab.cl
   

   Developping Loggable Hardware Comunication Board for Other Animals Than Humans (OATHs) to be able to comunicate and researcher to analize their communications (Inspired by https://www.hungerforwords.com/ and https://how.theycantalk.org/).

5. https://bigkeys.incalab.cl
   

   Design, Implementation and Validation of prototypes of Scalable and Adaptable Keyboard for OATHs (to be used in combination with https://comboard.incalab.cl).

6. https://backend.incalab.cl
   

   A central back-end for various applications to gather the usage logs in a website, in order to researchers in Comparative Psychology to select and study them.

5.1 About the group

5.2 About specific projects

1. InCA-WhatIsMore
   
   • Short video demo (3mns) https://pt.dcc.uchile.cl/w/jwACLoACoUgeBi7RneXkHt

6.1 InCA-ComBoard : A Loggable Aid to Speech: A Research Proposal

1. Authors
   
   • Jérémy Barbay
   • Camila Labarca-Rosenbluth
   • Brandon Peña-Haip
2. Links
   
   • https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364959193_A_Loggable_Aid_to_Speech_A_Research_Proposal
   • https://doi.org/10.1145/3565995.3566031
3. Bibtex
   

   \providecommand{\acronym}[1]{ (\textbf{#1})}
   \providecommand{\student}[1]{#1$^*$}
   \providecommand{\correspondingAuthor}[1]{#1$^{\dagger}$}
   @string { aciwp = "Proceedings of the Conference Animal Computer Interaction, Work in Progress Track\acronym{ACIWP}"}
   @InProceedings{2022-ACIWP-InCAComBoardReseachProposal-BarbayLabarcaPena,
       author = {\correspondingAuthor{J{\'e}r{\'e}my Barbay} and \student{Camila Labarca-Rosenbluth} and \student{Brandon Pe{\~n}a-Haipas}},
       title = {A Loggable Aid to Speech (for Human and Non Human Animals): A Research Proposal},
       pages = {1-7},
       booktitle = aciwp,
       publisher = {ACM Digital Library},
       address = {Association for Computing Machinery 1601 Broadway, 10th Floor New York, NY},
       year = {2022}}
   

4. OUTLINE
   

   BACKGROUND

   Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) solutions allowing non human animals to communicate in human words by pressing buttons associated to recorded voice have undergone an explosive growth since 2018. Any scientific validation of such communication abilities will require extensive logging of the interactions, which is usually performed by constantly recording the subjects on video, having the guardians reporting and tagging each communication interactions, and researchers analyzing the context before and after the interaction.

   PROBLEM

   Such extensive logging is costly, and its analysis tedious, which limits the amount of data being gathered.

   HYPOTHESIS

   Could a dedicated application give a similar experience, but with the added advantage of generating automatcially an extensive log of usages, which researchers and educators could study in order to validate and improve the methodology, for the subject in particular and in general?

   PROPOSAL

   We propose to design, implement and validate 1) a hardware keyboard to be used by medium non human animals such as dogs and cats to interact with electronic devices; 2) a configurable ``communication board'' application which not only emits human words associated to each button, but also logs such interactions, and allows a guardian to annotate the recent interactions for future analysis; and 3) a centralized back-end gathering the annotated logs from various devices, facilitating their study by researchers.

   VALIDATION

   We propose to validate the usability of such solutions with medium-sized and small-sized non human animals one one hand, and with comparative psychology researchers on the other hand.

6.2 Popping Up Balloons for Science: a Research Proposal

1. Venues
   

   ACI 2022 [Work in Progress]

   https://scholar.google.cl/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=x7L1W0rvHwsC&sortby=pubdate&citation_for_view=x7L1W0rvHwsC:P5F9QuxV20EC

2. Authors
   
   • Jérémy Barbay
   • Daniel Freire-Fernández
   • Danko Lobos-Bustamante
3. Bibtex entries
   

6.3 Can Monk Parakeets compare quantities faster and/or better than Humans? A Research Proposal

1. Venues
   

   ACI 2022 [Work in Progress]

   https://scholar.google.cl/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=x7L1W0rvHwsC&sortby=pubdate&citation_for_view=x7L1W0rvHwsC:1sJd4Hv_s6UC

2. Authors
   
   • Jérémy Barbay
   • Fabián Jaña-Ubal
3. Bibtex entries
   

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

1. Venues
   

   arXiv

   https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.00734

   ACI 2022 [Research]

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3565995.3566040

2. Authors
   
   • Jérémy Barbay
   • Fabián Jaña-Ubal
   • Cristóbal Sepulveda-Álvarez
3. Additional Material:
   
   • Short video demo (3mns) https://pt.dcc.uchile.cl/w/jwACLoACoUgeBi7RneXkHt
   • Original Study from Al Ain et al.: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18704526/
4. Human Reference
   

   Measuring Discrimination Abilities of Monk Parakeets Between Discreet and Continuous Quantities Through a Digital Life Enrichment Application, by Jérémy Barbay, Fabián Jaña-Ubal, Cristóbal Sepulveda-Álvarez (2022)

5. Bibtex entries
   

          author = {\correspondingAuthor{J{\'e}r{\'e}my Barbay} and \student{Fabi{\'a}n Ja{\~n}a-Ubal} and \student{Crist{\'o}bal Sepulveda-{\'A}lvarez}},
          keywords = {Other Computer Science (cs.OH), FOS: Computer and information sciences, FOS: Computer and information sciences},
          title = {Measuring Discrimination Abilities of Monk Parakeets Between Discreet and Continuous Quantities Through a Digital Life Enrichment Application},
   pages = {to appear},
          booktitle = aci,
   publisher = {ACM Digital Library},
   address = {Association for Computing Machinery 1601 Broadway, 10th Floor New York, NY},
          year = {2022},
        } @misc{2022-ARXIV-MeasuringDiscriminationOfMonkParakeetsBetweenDiscreetAndContinuousQuantitiesThroughADigitalLifeEnrichmentApplication-BarbayJanaSepulveda,
          doi = {10.48550/ARXIV.2206.00734},
          url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.00734},
          author = {\correspondingAuthor{
        J{\'e}r{\'e}my Barbay} and \student{Fabi{\'a}n Ja{\~n}a-Ubal} and \student{Crist{\'o}bal Sepulveda-{\'A}lvarez}},
          keywords = {Other Computer Science (cs.OH), FOS: Computer and information sciences, FOS: Computer and information sciences},
          title = {Measuring Discrimination Abilities of Monk Parakeets Between Discreet and Continuous Quantities Through a Digital Life Enrichment Application},
          year = {2022},
          copyright = {Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal}
        }
   

7.1 Living and training spaces

7.2 Hardware devices

7.3 Digital Devices

1. Touch screens
   

   Name	Type	Brand	Surface Active	Source
   			(cm2)
   Red	Smartphone	Samsung Galaxy Note 9	15x7	J….y B….y
   Grey	Smartphone	Samsung Galaxy Note 9	15x7	J….y B….y
   Nexus	Smartphone	Samsun Nexus One	8x5	J….y B….y
   Big Tablet	Tablet	Samsung Galaxy Tab A	16x12	Vanessa P. Araya

2. Keyboards
   

   Name	Description	Brand	Surface Active	Source
   			(cm2)	(Donated/Bought by)
   Recordable Answer Buzzers (4)	Recordable Buttons	Learning Resources	4*(9x9)	J….y B….y
   Fluent Pet Buttons (6) and pads (3)	Recordable Buttons	Fluent Pet	6*(3x3)	J….y B….y
   BigKeys 1.0	USB Keyboard with large keys Goma Hevea	Home Made	6*(4x4)	Sistemas DCC
   BigKeys 2.0	USB Keyboard with large keys Poly Carbonate	Home Made	8*(5x5)	Electro Systems

7.4 Physical Training toys