1. What is the purpose of the study?

There are two aims of the study:

a) The School of Computer Science aims to investigate the feasibility of using “citizen science” to study the field of animal behaviour.

b) The Department of Biological Sciences aims to investigate the feasibility of studying the field of attribution of emotions to animals and develop hypotheses to drive further research in the field.

2. What is Citizen Science?

Citizen science is a term that describes a partnership between ordinary citizens and scientists working together in real scientific studies. This partnership means we can create large research teams with networks of volunteers who have little training in the area of research to peform tasks such as observation, measurement and computation.

3. How many images are there?

There are potentially a limitless supply of photos of cute cats available however the database currently serving this site has just over 2000 photos that have been kindly donated to us for use in education and research.

4. How many images should I tag?

You are welcome to tag as few or as many as you like – every tag contributes to the study. When you move on through the process new images are randomly selected from the database, so potentially you could tag over 2000 should you feel so inclined.

5. What happens if I stop and start again?

Every time you enter the site a random selection of images from the database will be selected for you. This means that you may be shown the same image twice – in which case you may tag it again or skip it – or you may be shown a totally new selection.

6. When will I know the study results?

The study will be closed on August 16th 2010 and the data collected will then be made available on the site by following the same link, we estimate early October 2010. The tagpuss site will still be available to use after the study.

7. What results will be published?

At this stage the results that will be published on the site and potentially in the scientific literature should they be deemed of sufficient interest, will be more aimed at the method of data collection than the emotions themselves. We anticipate being able to give statistics regarding how many people tagged how many photos and which emotions were most commonly picked. We do not envisage publishing results as to exactly how many people attributed what emotions to what specific image, or whether or not the most picked emotions agree with those of a panel of experts. We envisage that the results will then potentially lead to additional work on two fronts – the School of Computer Science will be able to better assess how to develop such tools for research in the future and the Dept. of Biological Sciences will have a starting point for developing a more detailed study on emotions in cats – as per the original study aims.

8. How does this fit into the bigger picture?

If you would like to know more about the research and education initiatives in which the School of Computer Science and the Department of Biological Sciences are engaged please follow the links below:

Lincoln School Of Computer Science

Department of Biological Sciences