Technology can help humans and animals ‘share experiences’ according to a new study by researchers at the University of Glasgow.
Lemurs and people at Blair Drummond safari park near Stirling were able to interact with one another using controllers either side of the enclosure.
The experiment, led by Glasgow computing scientists and zookeepers, showed that sensory experiences with zoo visitors can help create meaningful connections between humans and animals.
Over the course of 20 days last year, visitors were offered the opportunity to collaborate with the park’s five red-ruffed lemurs on a unique experiment to trigger sounds, video clips and smells using the custom-built, computer-controlled ‘CreatureConnect’ system.
The lemurs chose to engage most often with CreatureConnect when they could collaborate with humans to control the stimuli, suggesting they were finding value in the experience. At the same time, visitors were thrilled by the chance to engage with the lemurs, staying significantly longer at their enclosure and reporting high levels of empathy with the animals.
The researchers believe their finding could help bridge the gap between zoo animals’ need for personal space, privacy and agency, and zoo visitors’ desire to create a personal connection with animals during their trips.
By providing a means of mutually entertaining, indirect contact between the two, it could help enrich the lives of zoo animals in new ways and inspire greater support for wildlife conservation efforts from their human counterparts.
The results of the research will be presented as a paper at the CHI 2026 conference later this month.
Dr Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas leads the University of Glasgow’s Animal-Computer Interaction research group and is the paper’s corresponding author. She said: “Technology can enable humans to communicate with each other directly in lots of different ways. We chat on the phone, we text each other, we video call, and those shared experiences can enrich our lives.
“As part of our ongoing research relationship with Blair Drummond Safari Park, we wanted to explore whether offering shared control of technology could create a bridge between species that would be valuable for both.
“Our findings suggest for the first time that we can not only share experiences with other species using technology, but that, in this case, red-ruffed lemurs want to share them with us and prefer sharing to solo control.”
The custom-built, computer-controlled CreatureConnect system was split into two devices, with one placed on either side of the lemur enclosure’s glass partition. On both sides, it provided a digital interface which gave humans and lemurs alike control over the triggering of sounds, video footage, and scents.
On the animals’ side, it took the form of a box with speakers, a screen and a device to release scents. When a lemur approached the device, a distance sensor triggered sounds like music or rainforest ambience, visuals including an underwater scene and abstract patterns, and the smell of apple, lavender and mango. Moving closer raised the intensity of the stimuli, while moving further away dialled them down.
The system offered lemurs a randomly-chosen mix of two sights, sounds or smells based on previous research with the park’s animals, which showed the lemurs preferred to have more than one stimulus at a time.
On the visitors’ side, humans controlled the stimuli using sliders on a touchscreen display, allowing them to adjust the intensity of the sensory modes when it was their turn to control the system.
During the 20 days CreatureConnect was on display at the park, more than 16,000 people visited the lemur enclosure. 1,719 of them used the system for themselves, and the lemurs interacted with it 541 direct times.
