3.2 Behavioural Research Methods of Studying Biopsychology Flashcards
How does an open field test assess species-common behaviour?
- animals are put into a box and watched
- this observes their natural behaviour
What has been found about social defeat in rats?
- male rats are territorial (aggressive)
- intruder (species specific stressor) is introduced to the habitat of the resident
- aggressive behaviour of the resident is quantified/consequences of defeat are explored
What is classical conditioning?
- pairing of conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus
- repetition = salivation (CR) with conditioned stimulus on its own
What is place preference conditioning?
- associating CS with UCS (drug)
- drug given in light side of the box
- natural preference then conditioned preference are assessed
- shows if drug is likely to be addictive or not
What is operant conditioning?
- association of a behaviour with an outcome
- reward/punishment
- skinner box
What are the 3 conditioning paradigms?
- classical
- place preference
- operant
What is an example of a semi-natural learning paradigm?
morris water maze: assesses spatial memory
How is the morris water maze conducted?
- tank is filled with water, submerged by a platform
- water is made opaque
- rat is placed in tank
- swims around and eventually finds platform
- rat put back in different locations (N, S, E and W)
- eventually learns to swim directly to platform regardless
What are the main measures in the morris water maze?
What are these disrupted by?
- escape latency: how long it takes to find platform
- spatial transfer test: platform is taken away and see where rat spends the most time
both of these are disrupted by hippocampal lesions: hippocampus is concerned with spatial learning
How are field observations conducted in the assessment of animal behaviour paradigms?
What are the positives and negatives?
animals are observed in their natural environment e.g for aggression
+ high ecological validity
- lots can get in the way of the observation
What have field observations found about aggression?
- many mammals are polygynous: one male mates with several females
- competition between males for access to females
- leads to intra-sexual aggression
- red deer stags: compete for females in autumn rut
What have field observations found about social dominance?
- dominant and submissive individuals = common feature of social organisation of animals
- submission often has negative consequences for reproductive success
What have field observations found about courtship display? (mating effort)
- getting access to females is not just about fighting
- in polygynous mating systems, females are choosy about which male to mate with
- males in a lot of mating effort
