Behavior

Question 1

Behavior

Answer 1

A whole animal response to the environment; often involves movement but does not require movement

Question 2

What are examples of some behaviors?

Answer 2

Thermoregulation (basking out in the sun to get warmer), body maintenance (licking oneself to clean), hiding, avoiding capture, capturing prey, anting, ambush behavior

Question 3

Imprinting

Answer 3

The first formal study of behavior; first moving object the ducks see=mom and want to follow (imprinted into brain)

Question 4

What are the four questions that Tinbergen asked?

Answer 4

What triggered the behavior?

What is the behavior’s utility?

How does the behavior develop?

How did the behavior evolve?

Question 5

Proximate causes

Answer 5

Nearby or what is happening right now; causation and function

Question 6

Causation

Answer 6

“What triggers the behavior?”; stimulus/mechanism

Question 7

Function

Answer 7

“What is the behavior’s utility” or what is it for; adaptation

Question 8

What is an example of causation and function?

Answer 8

See a predator (causation) and tells to alert the other animals (function)

Question 9

Ultimate causes

Answer 9

“Grander why”; includes development and evolution

Question 10

Development

Answer 10

“How does the behavior develop?” and how does it change across a lifetime; ontogeny

Question 11

Evolution

Answer 11

“How did the behavior evolve?”; phylogeny-comparing across diff. species

Question 12

Innate

Answer 12

Instincts/don’t need to be taught; often fixed in form or action (same throughout); usually performed identically in all individuals; Ex: baby crawling

Question 13

Learned

Answer 13

Experience shapes behavior; large individual level variation (diff. per person); may be maintained through teaching; Ex: learning how to make a fire

Question 14

Fixed action pattern

Answer 14

Innate behavior that once triggered will always go to completion; triggered by a sign stimulus; is not a reflex because it requires processing by the brain; Ex: goose egg rolling behavior

Question 15

Associations

Answer 15

Learned behavior; Ex: classical conditioning, imprinting, food aversions

Question 16

Food aversions

Answer 16

Developed when an animal associates nausea or pain w/ a food; Ex: bird eats monarch butterfly -> gets sick -> associates sickness w/ butterfly and doesn’t want to eat that anymore

Question 17

Classical conditioning

Answer 17

Association of an arbitrary (random) stimulus with a reward (usually food); Ex: Ivan Pavlov and dog (bell -> drool b/c of food)

Question 18

What can a pigeon learn to associate and what can it not?

Answer 18

It can associate a sound w/ danger but not a color w/ danger.

Question 19

Open ended

Answer 19

Learned behavior at any point in time; Ex: food aversions and song learning

Question 20

Sensitive period

Answer 20

Learned behavior at a specific time in life; Ex: imprinting and song learning

Question 21

You raised a bird in total isolation. At adulthood this bird sings a natural sounding song what can we infer about song learning?

It requires a tutor

Learning only during a sensitive period

Open ended

Innate

Answer 21

Innate

Question 22

What are some reasons why animals communicate to other animals?

Answer 22

To alert danger, internal state, show competitiveness, and alert current position

Question 23

Modality

Answer 23

Medium used to transmit info

Question 24

What are some modalities used in communication?

Answer 24

Visual, acoustic, chemical, tactile, electric

Question 25

How is communication shown to evolve between species?

Answer 25

Raising eyebrows only in dogs but not wolves. Chickadee making an alert sound and other birds are able to understand it (b/c of convergent evolution)