Doctor's thesis
Understanding visitor’s viewing experiences of the animal exhibits in the zoos
Misako NAMIKI
Ochanomizu Univ. Tokyo, Japan
２００２．Feb
Abstract
Zoos are used by many families as a place for recreational activities and most of the visitors consist of combinations of preschool and/or school children and their parents. The author surveyed the manner in which animal exhibits are used and communication is carried out by “families with children,” the primary visitor group, linked to exhibit methods.
Since new exhibit methods have been used recently for the exhibit of primates, the author surveyed the following two points, (1) the way of transmitting the intended exhibit messages and (2) the characteristics and meaning that viewing animal exhibits can have for families with children at the new Woods of Gorillas at the Ueno Zoological Park and at the new chimpanzee exhibit at the Tama Zoological Park.
At the Woods of Gorillas, the animals are exhibited in an environment simulating the natural setting that lowland gorillas originally inhabited. The new chimpanzee exhibit is characterized by an exhibit within an environment containing numerous contrivances that make it possible for chimpanzees to express their natural behavior and by the construction of an interpretation center provided with interpretive signs and objects. By having all of these provide zoo visitors with new visual experiences, they have the purpose of stimulating in zoo visitors an understanding of the animals as well as nature conservation. The surveys were conducted based on relative comparisons to previous exhibit methods. By “previous exhibit methods” is meant the great ape exhibit at the ChibaZoologicalPark in relation to the Woods of Gorillas and the old chimpanzee exhibit at the Tama Zoo in relation to the new chimpanzee exhibit at the same facility.
The author proceeded with these
comparative surveys with the following theoretical background, namely, recent
theories of understanding visitor experience including the perspective of
visitors in the evaluation of museum exhibits.
These theories include the switch from communication theory that calls
into question the manner in which the exhibit messages intended by exhibit
designers and curators are transmitted to communication theory that places the
priority on the process of making meanings through the medium of exhibits by
both the visitors and exhibit designers and curators.
The author devised a model for reviewing
these tendencies and analyzing the visual experiences of exhibits as the mutual
relationship process between visitors. This is referred to as the communication
model of mutual relationships .
Based on this model, the author collected conversations between children and their parents at the target gorilla and chimpanzee exhibits, observed their behavior, conducted direct interviews and verified the effect of new exhibit methods. These investigations had been held from 1999 to 2000, and the total period of investigation was about 90 hours.
Conversations between zoo visitors were classified as comments and categorized as “pointing out facts and information” (reporting on what was observed regarding animal behavior or morphology), “asking questions” (asking questions regarding animals or exhibit objects), “giving impressions” (impressions) and “encouraging and prompting” (agreeing with the statements of others, offering different views, etc.). I calculated the frequency of their emergence in each family by category and conducted comparisons between the exhibits.
As a result, first of all, though it cannot be said that the primate exhibits based on the new exhibit methods necessarily transmit the intentions of the exhibits aptly to the visitor families, there was strong support for the new exhibit methods. Secondly, there was a significant increase in comments with the new exhibit methods regarding animal behavior. Thirdly, depending on the age of the child, there was a significant increase in watching the animals with a sense of sympathy. Fourthly, there was a high frequency of social interaction between visitors at the interpretation center newly constructed at the new chimpanzee exhibit.
Furthermore, among characteristics of this social interaction, it is thought that the development of linguistic expressions when speaking is also involved and I moreover conducted an experiment to verify that development. In the experiment, I showed a videotape of typical gorilla behavior to four age groups (preschool children, elementary school students, high school students and adults) and to an expert group (group with experience in animal care at zoos) and asked them about the meaning of the behavior and their perceptions of the feelings of the animals. The following is a summary of what I learned as a result.
(1) There was a difference between the individual animals in which adults and preschool children showed interest, (2) there was a stronger tendency among preschool children than among elementary school students to intermix their own feelings with the feelings of the animals, (3) a critical view emerged among elementary school students and older subjects that they were “being watched,” (4) high school students were more capable than any other age group of multifaceted interpretations of animal behavior and (5) there was a tendency for the experienced expert group to comment on animal behavior in terms of purpose and they, furthermore, expressed a stronger feeling of resistance to being watched than any other group.
In addition, when attempting to understand the animals, all of the groups tended to extract their own personal experiences and their feelings at that time.
The results of the above surveys and experiments suggest that, besides the type of exhibit method that has been employed, differences in the manner of expression due to age differences of family members also influence mutual communication while observing animal exhibits. The author furthermore asserts that a mechanism should be developed within exhibit interpretations for active participation in three different ways of viewing exhibits that I raised (i.e., gazing, viewing with fixed attention, imagining things that are not visually evident) depending on age as a means of interpretation for zoo visitors.
It is thought that whether or not visitors can adopt an active way of viewing has a strong involvement in the provision of new visual experiences as intended by exhibit designers and curators. The creation of a self-driven, active way of viewing by zoo visitors remains an issue for the future.