Toward Characterization of Playful ACI

Animals' playful interactions with technology are drawing increasing attention within the animal-computer interaction (ACI) community. Behavioral research distinguishes between three main types of animal play, social play (with other animals of the same or different species), locomotor-rotational play (alone or in company), and object play (interacting with inanimate objects). The starting point is the concept of behavior, which in animal science is considered a reaction to stimuli in the animal's environment. Another part of our framework is a technological device, which is placed in the animal's environment. In reaction to input, the device produces output in the form of sensory stimuli, which are part of the overall stimuli of the environment. The animal displays behaviors, which are responses to the environmental stimuli, some of which trigger new stimuli. Domestic and zoo-bound animals, as well as captive animals living in rescue centers, do not follow a typical development pattern from juveniles to adults as seen in nature. They generally participate in play activities at all ages. It is therefore hard to identify whether an activity is a non-serious, simplified version of later adult activity.