Scientists are studying how the intelligent, social birds interact with touchscreens to help design mobile apps that serve as enrichment for the birds

When kept as pets, however, this means parrots can easily become bored and lonely. Human owners do their best, but keeping the birds engaged, active and happy can be challenging.

Now, researchers say mobile games on tablets might be able to help. Scientists are gathering data on how pet parrots interact with touchscreens, in hopes that they might one day design apps specifically for the birds, they report in a new paper.

After synthesizing all the information, researchers gleaned some valuable insights from the tests. For starters, they learned the birds primarily used their tongues to interact with the tablet. But using their tongues also meant their eyes were very close to the screen, so the birds often pulled back their heads before tapping the next target—and the data supported this, showing a delay between touches, even when the circles got closer together. This likely contributed to the parrots being slower and less accurate than humans, though they improved when the circles were larger.

The birds also used less pressure than humans, so the game didn’t always acknowledge their taps. The birds also tended to drag their tongues across the screen in a licking motion. Some parrots used their tongues to rapidly touch the same circle multiple times, with up to 41 touches in a row.