Use of Quantitative Measures in Zoosemiotics: how Machines Are Becoming a New Pair of Ears and Eyes for Researchers

The question of quantitative methods versus qualitative methods appears periodically in most of the scientific fields. Which is the most relevant? The most useful? Do we find the same things when using these two options, are they congruent? While most of the academic fields have a quite important and strong literature dealing with these questions nowadays, it is not really the case for zoosemiotics. In this paper, I will introduce the main issues zoosemioticians can resolve by using quantitative methods and tools, and how and why it is mandatory to implement them if qualitative theory to pursue our researches further.