Of course, there are more intentional technological implementations for our furry friends. Smart feeders, water fountains or self-cleaning litterboxes among those helping owners take care of their pets or robotic toys to entertain them. But, what about robotic companions? Is the rapidly growing number of robotic pets for human users a threat for living pets? Or maybe they could become friends?
To answer these questions in my HTI master’s thesis, I have brought a Bird Robot and a Cat Robot created by the Joy for All brand to four households with one male and one female cat participants to see how they would react to the robotic companions primarily designed for elderly people. I wanted to see which of the robots – prey-like or friend-like, would facilitate a more natural (real-life-like) interaction with cat users.
My main motivation was to establish a groundwork for future development of biomimetic robots for feline interaction, which would help in the research of cat sociality and cognition contribute to animal welfare and endangered species preservation.
Cat owners, who also participated in the study, provided a valuable insight into their cats’ emotions and behaviour, which helped me to understand how the robots were perceived by the cats. I learned that both robots can be useful in the research of cat behaviour, since half of the participants exhibited hunting behaviour towards the Bird Robot and three of them were social with the Cat Robot.
Based on the cats’ reactions and owners’ feedback I created design implications sketches for the further development of the robots.
After the design iteration of the robots, cats could exhibit a bigger variety of social behaviours and hunting behaviours, which would provide valuable data for further studies of feline species.
Get in touch with me if you would like to learn more about my research or if you are interested in collaborating with me on my future projects 🙂
Written by HTI student Ludi Pilch (ludwika.pilch@tuni.fi)
