Researchers in Australia are looking into new ways to create bonds with orangutans. These bonds are inspired by the way humans engage with each other: through music and games.
The Melbourne Zoo in Australia in currently conducting an experiment with using video games that uses 3D cameras. The researchers are hoping to have the orangutans, which are known to be highly intelligent, to produce their own music through an interactive game that uses video game technology. The experiment aims to provide useful results while keeping the apes occupied and engaged during their time in the zoo, ABC Catalyst reported.
Initially, the project began with a tablet where apes can reach through the wire mesh and play the tablet outside the cage. However, it is not so efficient to give an orangutan an iPad.
Since the chimp loved digital playtime, the researchers thought of the experiment.
The video game was specially created by the Melbourne Zoo in collaboration with Melbourne University's Microsoft Research Centre for Social Natural User. The game was made using Xbox One's 3D Kinect system to provide lights inside the cage that allows the apes to touch a virtual object and match it with the same object touched by a human outside the cage. However, the orangutans seems to be more interested in the reflection of the lights on their skin more than the game itself, Music.Mic reported.
The experiment already resulted positively on the animal's mental engagement. It also earned the attention of several zoo patrons.
The researchers in Melbourne plans to create sounds based on the movements made by the chimps inside the cage. Eventually, the intelligent primates will be calculating their movements to create music.
The current game, however, is not suited for an orangutan's physical capabilities as it only involves walking and moving an arm, according to Catalyst.
