According to a study, monkeys who were given their own “primate-focused” versions of Spotify and Netflix were more inclined to prefer audio stimuli over screen time.
Researchers from the University of Glasgow and Aalto University in Finland wanted to see how a group of three white-faced saki monkeys at Helsinki’s Korkeasaari Zoo would react to being able to trigger audio or visual stimuli on command.
The sakis would trigger either a video or a sound on a screen in front of them, which would play for as long as they chose to stay. Infrared sensors were used to create three equally sized interactive zones in a tunnel in the monkey’s enclosure, and the sakis would trigger either a video or a sound on a screen in front of them, which would play for as long as they chose to stay.
The sakis were shown to trigger audio stimuli twice as often as visual stimuli when their interactions were recorded, implying that they would rather listen to the Arctic Monkeys than watch Planet of the Apes.
Their total levels of involvement with both stimuli decreased as the study went, but their interactions with visual stimuli rose in compared to audio stimuli. They listened to music the most out of the three audio tracks (the others were rain sounds and traffic noise). Despite competition from worm videos and abstract forms and colors, underwater images proved to be the most popular of the three video files.
Lead Image: Three white-faced sakis could choose to listen to audio or visual stimuli in the study at Korkeasaari zoo, Helskini. Photograph: China News Service/VCG/Getty Images.
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