Exploring the Cockatoo's Engagement with Audiovisual Stimuli: An Inclusive Avian-IoT Interaction Design

Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI) research has steadily progressed enrichment methods and engagement technologies for animals, particularly for parrot species. Building on this trajectory, this study explores a low-effort, welfare-conscious, and multimodal approach to engage a captive salmon-crested cockatoo. Leveraging insights from prior studies on parrot-specific interactive technologies, multimodal enrichment, and animal-IoT applications, we implemented a prototype avian-IoT system that emphasizes voluntary engagement, minimal disruption, and remote monitoring. The prototyped system integrates a mobile application, a central server, and interaction devices to coordinate stimuli, manage data, and enable remote observation with low manual maintenance and training efforts. In a pilot experiment conducted at Kyoto City Zoo, the responsive multimodal stimuli effectively engaged the cockatoo, with auditory cues proving especially salient in encouraging interaction and reducing vigilance behaviors. The results demonstrate the feasibility of IoT-mediated multimodal interaction that can balance animal agency with human participation, offering valuable insights for designing animal-centered IoT systems and inclusive cross-species interaction frameworks.