Museum Visitors Are Similar to Animals
Museum Visitors Are Similar to Animals
May 3, 2012 by Taylor Studios
Optimal Foraging Theory asserts that animals forage for food in a way that maximizes potential caloric intake while expending the least amount of energy while doing so.
In a 2004 article called Strategies for the Curiosity-Driven Museum Visitor, author Jay Rounds has applied a foraging model to visitor behavior:
A parallel between optimal foraging theory and museum visitor behavior? Wow!
I have finally found a description of how I behave when let loose in a museum exhibit. I hurry towards the exhibits I perceive as having the greatest potential effect. If they take too long or become in any way exhaustive, I move on.
As I looked deeper into foraging theory, I found something even more analogous to museum visitor behavior, it’s called Information Foraging Theory.
Information Foraging Theory considers humans INFORMAVORES. The most important concept in the Information Foraging Theory is information scent. As animals rely on scents in the wild to indicate the chances of finding prey in a certain location and then guide them to other promising areas, so do humans rely on various cues in the information environment to get similar answers. Human users estimate how much useful information they are likely to attain on a given path, and after seeking information, compare the outcome with their predictions. Then they make the proper adjustments. (2)
Finally, an evolutionary explanation for why I bypass exhibit labels with far too much text.
Sources:
(1) Rounds, J. 2004. Strategies for the curiosity-driven museum visitor.
(2) Wikipedia