Koki: The Standalone Monkey

 

One day, Amanda and her colleagues from the Center for Wildlife Conservation Amazon went to a forest in the Amazon to do some researches on monkeys over there. Amanda is known as a zoologist. In their adventures while doing the research, Amanda and the crew have found a baby monkey that has been abandoned by her mother without a care. So, Amanda and the other zoologist had decided to bring back the baby monkey back to the care center. They named the baby monkey as Koki and Amanda was appointed as a chief who will take care of the monkey. So, most of her time was spent with the baby monkey and she was supposed to take care of it until Koki reaches 3 years old. After that, they will have to release her to  the real habitat again.

Throughout that particular period, Amanda who is apparently a blond hair women became a care taker for Koki. Therefore, Koki was avoiding anyone who are not blond and run away from anyone who gets close to her. However, what was noticeable to Amanda was, Koki did not shown any sign of fear from other people who have blonde hair or anything that has similar color to Amanda's hair. So, she came up with an idea. In order to prevent Koki from getting attached to strange people with blonde hair and escapes away from the care center, Amanda taught Koki to identify the odor of her because usually animal can recognize others through their sense of smell. By that, Koki will always recognize Amanda as a mother to her, and stays close to her.

When Koki grown up to 3 years old, it was the time to take her back to the forest, so that she will live together with other monkeys. But after almost 3 years with Amanda, when the team brought Koki to the forest, she was in the deepest feeling of sadness and was isolating herself from other monkeys. So, Amanda decided to stay with Koki in the forest for 2 weeks, in order to accompany Koki in familiarizing with the new environment. Throughout the two weeks, Amanda persuaded Koki to eat along with other monkeys. At first, Koki rejected the invitation to eat with other monkeys. But eventually, with Amanda being around and persuaded by food, Koki started to be familiar with them and began to socialize with other monkeys in the jungle happily. At last, Amanda left Koki with the new friends in the new habitat. The zoologists had put a collar on Koki’s neck in order to detect its movement in that forest.

They did not just left Koki alone just like that, but they have to study how a monkey like Koki’s situation, with no parents when baby, can cope with the real habitat in the future. So, for the first three months, the officers from the care center detected that Koki was in sadness and got depressed as she was left by her mother Amanda. But then, slowly, Koki tend to forget the previous mother by socializing and by making friends with other monkeys. And the best thing for it was, she has met her life partner.

After a year, Amanda really wanted to know how far Koki’s progress in coping with the new habitat. After she met a life partner, Koki got its own baby and live happily in the jungle with other monkeys. Once Amanda met Koki, at the first sight, Koki showed slight happiness. But at the same time, she tried to avoid Amanda because she thought that Amanda will harm her. Slowly and gradually after regained her memory, especially after recognized Amanda through her odor, Koki was jumping happily and started inviting other monkeys to greet Amanda as she remembered that Amanda was her mother when she was a baby. Koki also showed appreciation by brought her baby to Amanda. Amanda was really touched with the response from Koki and by that, she realized that Koki now is living happily in the new environment.
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So, which part is related to the concepts below? From what we have learned in our class?

1. Associative bias
2. Sensory preconditioning
3. Higher order Conditioning
4. Extinction
5. Counter conditioning
6. Spontaneous recovery
7. Stimulus discrimination
8. Generalization