Ron Broglio

Do Zoos and Aquariums Promote Attitude Change in Visitors? A Critical Evaluation of the American Zoo and Aquarium Study

Modern-day zoos and aquariums market themselves as places of education and conservation. A recent study conducted by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) (Falk et al., 2007) is being widely heralded as the first direct evidence that visits to zoos and aquariums produce long-term positive effects on people’s attitudes toward other animals. In this paper, we address whether this conclusion is warranted by analyzing the study’s methodological soundness. We conclude that Falk et al. (2007) contains at least six major threats to methodological validity that undermine the authors’ conclusions. There remains no compelling evidence for the claim that zoos and aquariums promote attitude change, education, or interest in conservation in visitors, although further investigation of this possibility using methodologically sophisticated designs is warranted.

AFTER ANIMALITY, BEFORE THE LAW: interview with cary wolfe

This interview discusses Cary Wolfes book Before the Law with a focus on how animals fit within the framework of biopolitics. Wolfe takes on the distinctions between Foucaults and Agambens development of biopolitics and finds room within Foucaults conceptualization for rethinking the role of animals within culture and philosophy. Additionally, the interview explores current directions in posthumanism and the Minnesota University Press series oversees as editor.

WHEN ANIMALS AND TECHNOLOGY ARE BEYOND HUMAN GRASPING

This essay explores the “wealth of openness” Heidegger leaves open for the animals. This other open provides a possible outside beyond the dialectic of human-animal as figured by Agambens anthropological machine. Producing ways of thinking this beyond serves as the frame by which essays in this collection are then introduced.

Thinking about stuff: posthumanist phenomenology and cognition

Emerging digital technologies, such as sensors and pervasive computing, provide a robust interplay between digital and physical space. Architecture as a disciplinary endeavor has subsumed the capacities of these technologies without allowing the difference these technologies afford to challenge fundamental notions of architecture, such as cognition, visibility, and presence. This essay explores the inverse of the architectural ground by exploring the cognitive capacity for non-animate entities. The implication of this posthuman phenomenology is that entities themselves pose questions and that “stuff” thinks. Given an expanded definition of thinking, the environment is an active agent of entities that respond to human building with forces, tensions, marks, and crossings—physical elements that yield symbolic significance in our world.

Teaching beyond the human form: avatar as multimedia expression

ing, Understanding and Remodeling Within most online three-dimensional chat or game spaces, Avatars, the visual placeholder/representation of the user appear humanoid in form. Variations on form range from cartoon characters, monstrous forms and floating heads. The role the Avatar plays however is constant and two-fold, to serve as a visual identifier for the user and through gestures and costumes act as a means of expressive communication for the user. Both roles revolve around the act of communication. Abstracted down into programming terminology we see the Avatar not as a superficial humanoid representation endowed with gestural expression but as a four dimensional point (3D & time) for data exchange between users. In turn, this abstraction of the Avatar opens the door to a world of simple, yet previously unthinkable possibilities. Starting with that four dimensional point and focusing on the needs of communication within a virtual space, we apply the affordances and limitations of screen-based, mouse driven environments. In this context, the natural, extremely subtle, fluid realm of humanoid expression and gesture does not translate well into key presses and the sliding x, y values of a mouse. In fact, the mouse is already overtaxed by taking on the role of hands, feet and neck within a virtual space. Instead of relying solely humanoid expression we utilize the affordances of the media and accept that the user exists within a computer generated space. A space about which, in 1965, Ivan Sutherland wrote, “the rules of reality need not apply”. We can borrow from conventional computer methodologies. The users avatar can communicate by morphing into a multimedia presentation. Although the production of a multimedia presentation can be very complex, the delivery of the presentation merely requires a series of mouse clicks. By its very nature, it is designed for mouse-driven screen-based environments. In this context, our multimedia methodology mirrors typical computer presentations. The only difference is that we combine the projection screen with the presenter/performers Avatar. Effective application of this multimedia methodology follows real world precedents. Real benefits can found in diverse online genres music concerts, theatre, poetry, shopping and perhaps most directly – distance learning. The affordances of this approach directly target serious deficiencies in online multi-user Web3D environments. This includes issues regarding human computer interaction and cognitive science. • Approach allows us the ability to dole out useable amounts of 3D interactivity. • Unwieldy interactive/navigational processes are broken into focused operations. • By replacing the human form with content we use the fullest amount of screen real estate. • It provides an intuitive mechanism to guide the social dynamic. • Performer/Teacher exercises control over the scene through graphically dominant action. • Performer/Teacher is intuitively responsible for new content appearing on screen. Working examples of this new methodology have been produced by several developers and are available online. A teacher quickly shifts into a title slide with panoramic background from Georgia Tech, Bespace – The Immersive Darwin Lecture From Top to Botton, Left to Right Georgia Tech, Bespace – The Immersive Darwin Lecture: 1) The teacher’s Avatar is an interactive model of rock strata. Students are asked to interpret the fossil record within the religious views of 19 century England. 2) Student’s learn about the “Enclosure Movement” which unexpectedly helped trigger the animal breeding work of Robert Bakewell. 3) An overview of the Bespace virtual lecture hall. Adam Nash, Memory Plains Returning – A collaborative music project with a ghostlike audience immersed in three abstract performers The Town Square at Ariadne – Two projects: 1) An immersive lecture on astronomy, the teacher’s Avatar is, for the moment a galaxy, the student is a dog. 2) The initial virtual poetry reading of “Laundry Girl” In the Larger Context In the process of human communication, the use of a humanoid form has an inherent value. It immediately reinforces a sense of presence and provides an intelligible link to the reality that most users are accustomed to. In this sense, the ability to become a multimedia presentation is best understood as extension to the visual communication abilities already employed by average individual in real space. These visual abilities range from gestures and facial expressions to PowerPoint slides and on the far end even MTV videos. Applied to common, everyday interactions between individual users the use of a large multimedia presentation is unwarranted. It’s possible that popular constructs such as “bots” or other artificial semiintelligent agents could make use of such functionality. In the near term however, the goal is not to replace human interaction, but to empower it. With several developers now funded or with funding in site, the potential of this multimedia methodology can only grow. With growth will come new theories, discoveries and questions involving the nature of human/computer and human/human interaction. The choice of Charles Darwin in the education prototype was no accident. The evolution of the human form in a computer-generated environment is now beginning. The rules of natural selection have become digital.

Strong claims, feeble evidence: A rejoinder to falk et al. (2010)

The criticisms of Falk et al. (2010) are addressed, and the question of whether claims made by Falk et al. (2007) are valid is revisited. This rebuttal contends that Falk et al. (2007) misconstrue Popper’s role in philosophy of science and hence do not provide a strong test of their hypothesis. Falk et al. (2010) claim that they never made causal statements about the impact of zoo and aquarium visits in their 2007 study. Yet, this commentary shows that Falk et al. (2007) draw several unsupported, strong causal conclusions. The criticism that primary documents were not used in Marino et al. (2010) is also addressed, as this refutation demonstrates that the analysis was based on all available documents. Finally, this commentary aims, through its criticisms of Falk et al. (2007), to catalyze better-quality research on the effects of zoo and aquarium visits.

Beyond Human, Avatar as Multimedia Expression

The Avatar, the representation of the user in three-dimensional chat environments, serves as a visual identifier for the user and through gestures/costumes acts as a means of expression for the user. The Avatar also serves as a point through which the user receives information and manipulates the environment. Abstracted into programming terminology, the Avatar is not a humanoid representation endowed with gestural expression, but a four dimensional point (3D & time) for data exchange. Accepting this abstraction of the Avatar opens the door to a world of simple, yet previously unthinkable, possibilities for expressive communication.