Touchscreens for Monkeys
Between 2014 and 2022 I have focused on designing, developing, and deploying touchscreen devices, code, and experimental protocols for captive monkeys (Rhesus macaques, Common Marmosets, Long-tailed macaques). The devices are known as Experimental Behavioral Instruments, XBIs in short.
This approach represents a paradigm shift from traditional chair-seated methods, offering numerous benefits for both the animals and the research process, and as a consequence it has received the support of the scientific community.
Through these devices and activities, captive animals can access cognitive training and enrichment directly from their home enclosure. This not only reduces potential stress associated with movement constraints but also provides cognitive assessment data.
From a practical standpoint, this system enhances the way cognitive research can be conducted. By automating the data acquisition process, I have contributed to streamlining the research workflow, saving considerable time and resources while improving animal welfare. This automation allows for scaling up the number of animals tested simultaneously, addressing previous ethical, practical, and scientific limitations in cognitive research with primates.
Rhesus Macaques
The XBI designed for rhesus macaques incorporates a touchscreen, two cameras, and two reward systems. It allows standardized (Calapai et al 2016) and individualized self-paced cognitive training (Beger et al 2018), assessment (Yurt et al 2022), and enrichment (Calapai et al 2023), as well as wireless brain recordings (Hansmeyer et al 2023).
The five peer-reviewed articles that describe the device and its capabilities have been cited by more than a hundred times.
Common Marmosets
The XBI designed for the marmosets is an adaptation of the original device developed for rhesus. It is optimized for the smaller size of the marmosets, to run visuo-acoustic trainings and assessment, and it runs completely on single-board computers (Raspberry PI).
The device has been described in a peer-reviewed publication on Nature Communications (Calapai et al 2022).
Long-tailed Macaques
The XBI for Long-tailed Macaques is comprised by the same shell as the original device, but uses different hardware (2x Raspberry PIs instead of the MacBook), runs custom-written python-based software, allows animal face identification by mean of custom-made machine vision models.
The device has been described in a peer-reviewed publication on Frontiers in Psychology (Cabrera-Moreno et al 2022).