Human-animal interactions and machine-animal interactions in animals under human care: A summary of stakeholder and researcher perceptions and future directions.

Animals under human care are exposed to a potentially large range of both familiar and unfamiliar humans. Human-animal interactions vary across settings, and individuals, with the nature of the interaction being affected by a suite of different intrinsic and extrinsic factors. These interactions can be described as positive, negative or neutral. Across some industries, there has been a move towards the development of technologies to support or replace human interactions with animals. Whilst this has many benefits, there can also be challenges associated with increased technology use. A day-long Animal Welfare Research Network workshop was hosted at Harper Adams University, UK, with the aim of bringing together stakeholders and researchers (n = 38) from the companion, farm and zoo animal fields, to discuss benefits, challenges and limitations of human-animal interactions and machine-animal interactions for animals under human care and create a list of future research priorities. The workshop consisted of four talks from experts within these areas, followed by break-out room discussions. This work is the outcome of that workshop. The key recommendations are that approaches to advancing the scientific discipline of machine-animal interactions in animals under human care should focus on: (1) interdisciplinary collaboration; (2) development of validated methods; (3) incorporation of an animal-centred perspective; (4) a focus on promotion of positive animal welfare states (not just avoidance of negative states); and (5) an exploration of ways that machines can support a reduction in the exposure of animals to negative human-animal interactions to reduce negative, and increase positive, experiences for animals.

Toward an integrated ethical review process: an animal-centered research framework for the refinement of research procedures.

The involvement of animals in research procedures that can harm them and to which they are deemed unable to consent raises fundamental ethical dilemmas. While current ethical review processes emphasize the application of the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement), grounded in a human-centered utilitarian ethical approach, a comprehensive ethical review also involves a harm-benefit analysis and the consideration of wider ethical issues. Nevertheless, to our knowledge, approaches are still needed to facilitate the integrative assessment and iterative revision of research designs to improve their ethical value or to identify cases in which using animals is irremediably unethical. Additionally, frameworks are lacking that explicitly include an animal-centered perspective into the ethical review process beyond welfare concerns, failing to cover broader ethical considerations (such as consent). In previous work we proposed an Animal-Centered Research framework (ACRf) comprising four animal-centered research principles (relevance, impartiality, welfare and consent) which could help researchers and ethical review bodies apprise research designs from an animal-centered perspective. This paper builds on and further develops our previous work by contextualizing the ACRf within the bigger picture of animal research ethical review and by illustrating how the ACRf could be operationalized within current ethical review processes. We contribute an extended framework that integrates the application of the ACRf principles within the ethical review process. To this end, we present findings from a theoretical case study focusing on the ethical review of a research protocol on the study of stress response in pigs. We discuss how our extended framework could be easily applied to facilitate a holistic approach to the ethical review process, and inform an iterative process of refinement, to support the development of research designs that are both more ethical and scientifically valid.

An Ethics Toolkit to Support Animal-Centered Research and Design.

Designers and researchers who work with animals need to employ an array of ethical competencies to guarantee the welfare of animals taking part in animal-centered research. The emerging field of Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI), which deals with the design of animal-centered interactive systems, considers ethics a fundamental concern when working with animals, and ACI researchers have proposed ethics frameworks in response to these concerns. Ethical approaches proposed within the field tend to be normative but, on their own, norms may not be sufficient to support designers who will inevitably face unexpected and ethically charged situations as the research progresses. During a research project, focused on the design of dog-friendly controls for Mobility Assistance Dogs (MADs), these limitations came to the fore. Drawing from situated ethics approaches, developed to support researchers' ethical engagement with vulnerable populations such as children and differently abled adults, this paper presents an ethics toolkit that aims to support animal-centered research and design by enabling researchers to make ethically sound situated decisions as their work progresses. The toolkit comprises three templates, each of which asks a series of questions aiming to articulate the ethical baselines of individual team members and of their research project, and to inform the development of a series of ethical guiding statements to better prepare designers to make ethical situated decisions. The application of the toolkit during the research with MADs helped the field researcher to clearly and systematically articulate the project's ethos and understand the ethical stance that guided the research team's interactions with the dogs, their trainers, and their human partners throughout the project. It also fostered a practice of active reflection within the team, which helped them to maintain their commitment to the project's ethos in the face of unexpected ethical challenges. We propose that, beyond supporting ACI research, the toolkit could support the ethical engagement of researchers and practitioners who work for and with animals in many other settings.

The Case for Animal Privacy in the Design of Technologically Supported Environments.

Privacy is an essential consideration when designing interactive systems for humans. However, at a time when interactive technologies are increasingly targeted at non-human animals and deployed within multispecies contexts, the question arises as to whether we should extend privacy considerations to other animals. To address this question, we revisited early scholarly work on privacy, which examines privacy dynamics in non-human animals (henceforth "animals"). Then, we analysed animal behaviour literature describing privacy-related behaviours in different species. We found that animals use a variety of separation and information management mechanisms, whose function is to secure their own and their assets' safety, as well as negotiate social interactions. In light of our findings, we question tacit assumptions and ordinary practises that involve human technology and that affect animal privacy. Finally, we draw implications for the design of interactive systems informed by animals' privacy requirements and, more broadly, for the development of privacy-aware multispecies interaction design.

High tech cognitive and acoustic enrichment for captive elephants.

This paper investigates the potential for using technology to support the development of sensory and cognitive enrichment activities for captive elephants. It explores the usefulness of applying conceptual frameworks from interaction design and game design to the problem of developing species-specific smart toys that promote natural behaviours and provide stimulation. We adopted a Research through Design approach, and describe how scientific inquiry supported our design process, while the creation of artefacts guided our investigations into possible future solutions. Our fieldwork resulted in the development of an interactive prototype of an acoustic toy that elephants are able to control using interface elements constructed from a range of natural materials.