Analysis of Behaviour Flashcards
Name 3 factors that biologists may consider when choosing when to measure animal behaviour.
Is the study species nocturnal (mostly active at night), diurnal (mostly active during the day) or crepuscular (mostly active during dawn and dusk)?
Are there peaks and troughs in the behaviour of interest?
Do measurements of the behaviour differ at different times of day?
Have I controlled for time of day in statistical analysis?
If measuring at one time only a day, have I made clear the results cannot be generalised to other times of day?
Name 3 factors that biologists may consider when choosing what behaviour to study.
Type of behaviour e.g. Sit, Stand, Slide, Peck etc.
Patterns in behaviour type
Vocalisations
Location: movement paths
Social behaviour: Proximity to nearest neighbour, distance from centre of the group, orientation towards other group members
Sensor based data e.g. Activity levels from accelerometer
What is an Ethogram?
A table which summarises animal behaviour.
An inventory of behaviour of a particular species.
When studying animal behaviour, how would the following factors be defined?
Latency, Frequency, Duration, Intensity/Amplitude.
Latency
Time from a specified event (usually the start of recordings) until the onset of behaviour of interest.
Frequency
The number of times a particular behaviour occurs within a given time period.
Duration
The length of time a particular behaviour lasts:
total duration - sum of durations of all instances of the behaviour of interest
percentage duration - sum of the duration of all instances/ total time available
mean duration - sum of duration of all instances/ frequency
Intensity/Amplitude
The level or degree to which the behaviour is being performed - e.g. How loud, how far, how high?
What is Statistical Modelling?
Flexible mathmatical ways to represent real data to identify relationships and make predictions.
What is meant by the term Confound?
Things that are not of interest to an experiment, but might influence measurements.
