Animal Activity and Visitor Learning at the Zoo

Abstract

This study investigated the effect animal activity had on information visitors attended to at three bear exhibits. Attention was used as an indirect measure of what information visitors are consciously processing, or learning. It was hypothesized that visitors would be more likely to attend to specific information about animal behavior when bears were active rather than when inactive or out of sight. Visitor conversations were recorded during observations of polar, sloth and spectacled bears. Conversation was coded according to its content (animal-directed, human-focused, behavior, other) and to the corresponding behavior of the bear (active, inactive, pacing, not visible). The energy level of the activity was also considered. The hypothesis was supported for the polar bears, but less so for the other two bears. Behavior conversation was highest and human-directed conversation was lowest in the presence of highly animated polar bears. Behavior content was limited in the presence of the less animated sloth and spectacled bears. However, it was still significantly less frequent, and human content more frequent, when the sloth and spectacled bears were pacing and/or not visible. Therefore, what visitors attended to was influenced by what the bears were doing. The findings suggest that animated activity (rather than the more broadly defined ‘activity’) elicits the most visitor attention to behavior, and this in turn potentially facilitates visitor learning.