Investigating Lemurs Sensory Modality in Technologies: How do Lemurs Engage with Single and Multimodal Stimuli in Zoos?

Current computer-based enrichment in zoos is often limited to providing a single-sensory experience, disregarding that animals perceive the world through multiple senses. To address this, we developed and deployed a multi-sensory device for six red ruffed lemurs in a zoo, incorporating visual, auditory, and olfactory stimuli in varying combinations to determine whether multi-sensory or single-sensory engage lemurs more in using the device. The device was deployed in the lemur's enclosure over 63 days, where when a lemur approached the device it would trigger a stimuli combination and record their engagement with the device. Framing our findings with zookeeper interviews, our initial results suggest that lemurs used the device more when it was presenting multi-modal stimuli, rather than a single stimulus. Future research will look further at individual, lemur numbers and specific sense types factors on lemur engagements with multi-sensory systems to investigate how technology can better meet their needs.