Psychology students visit Creation Kingdom Zoo to learn about conditioning
0Written by Amira Faizal.
A group of UPIKE students visited the Creation Kingdom Zoo on Oct. 11 in Gate City, Va., as part of Dr. LeAnne Epling’s Psychology of Learning class.
Students interacted with animals such as zebras, giraffes, and bears. They also fed monkeys and llamas.
Students observed classical and operant conditioning within the zoo animals. Conditioning is a behavioral process; therefore, a response is more recurrent in an environment with reinforcement being a reward for a reaction. Each animal’s behavior to the sound of food or attention was to automatically run up to the fence to get food. A lot of classical conditioning was noticed throughout the zoo as animals are trained using positive reinforcement such as feedings or touch by repeating the process.
“It was a fun trip, and the best part was feeding the lemurs,” Allie Chaney, senior psychology major, said.