Chapter 15

Question 1

behavior

Answer 1

the way an organism responds to changes in its internal or external environment

Question 2

A behavior can be

Answer 2

innate or learned

Question 3

Innate behavior

Learned behavior

Answer 3

‘inborn’ , for ex. running for shelter upon hearing a loud noise
something that;s taught , for ex. children sharing

Question 4

Ethology

Answer 4

the study of behavior and its relationship to its evolutionary origins

Question 5

Karl von Frisch

Answer 5

known for his extensive studies of honeybee communication and his famous description of the bee ‘waggle’ dance

Question 6

Niko Tinbergen

Answer 6

known for his elucidation of the fixed action pattern

Question 7

Konrad Lorenz

Answer 7

famous for his work with imprinting

Question 8

FAP

Answer 8

fixed action pattern
-innate, highly stereotypical behavior that, once begun, is continued to completion no matter how useless or silly looking

Question 9

FAPs are initiated by

Answer 9

external stimuli called sign stimuli

-when these stimuli are exchanged between members of the same species , they are known as releasers

Question 10

Example of a FAP

Answer 10

studied by tinbergen

1. involves the stickleback fish, which attacks other males that invade its territory
2. stickleback won’t attack an invading male stickleback lacking a red underbelly, but will attack a nonfishlike wooden model as long as a splash of red is visible

Question 11

Learning

Answer 11

a sophisticated process in which the responses of the organism are modified as a result of experience

Question 12

What is the capacity to learn tied to?

Answer 12

• length of life

- complexity of the brain

Question 13

Short life span

Long life span

Answer 13

• has no time to learn, even if it has the ability, therefore, it must rely on fixed action patterns
• a large part of its behavior is dependent on prior experience and learning

Question 14

Habituation

Answer 14

one of the simplest forms of learning in which an animal comes to ignore a persistent stimulus so it can go about its business

Question 15

Hydra Example w/ Habituation

Answer 15

1. if you tap a dish w/ a hydra, it will quickly shrink and become immobile
2. if you keep tapping, after a while the hydra will begin to ignore the tapping, elongate, and continue moving about
3. it has become habituated or used to the stimulus

Question 16

Associative Learning

Answer 16

1 type of learning in which 1 stimulus becomes linked to another through experience

Question 17

Examples of associative learning

Answer 17

classical conditioning

operant condition

Question 18

Why is classical conditioning widely accepted?

Answer 18

Ivan Pavlov, 1920s

1. dogs salivate when exposed to food
2. pavlov trained dogs to associate the sound of a bell w/ food
3. result of this conditioning, dogs would salivate, an automatic response, upon merely hearing the sound of the bell even though no food was present

Question 19

Operant Conditioning

Answer 19

is also called trial and error learning
-an animal learns to associate 1 of its own behaviors with a reward or punishment and then repeats or avoids that behavior

Question 20

Best Known Operant Conditioning Experiment

Answer 20

• done by B.F. Skinner in 1930s
• rat placed in cage w/ lever that released a pellet of food
• at first, the rat would depress the level by accident and receive food as a reward
• rat soon learned to associate the lever w/ the food and depressed it at will

Question 21

In operant conditioning, animals can also

Answer 21

learn to carry out a behavior to avoid punishment

-such systems of rewards and punishment are the basis of most animal training

Question 22

Imprinting

Answer 22

learning that occurs during a sensitive or critical period in the early life of an individual and is irreversible for the length of that period

Question 23

Imprinting

Answer 23

learning that occurs during a sensitive or critical period in the early life of an individual and is irreversible for the length of that period

Question 24

When you see ducklings following closely behind their mother,

Answer 24

you are seeing the result of successful imprinting

Question 25

Mother-offspring bonding in animals that depend on parental care is critical to

Answer 25

the safety and development of the offspring

Question 26

What happens if the mother-offspring pair doesn’t bond?

Answer 26

the parent will not care for the offspring and the offspring will die
at the juvenile period, when the offspring can survive without the parent, the response disappears

Question 27

Classical Imprinting Experiment

Answer 27

• carried out by Konrad Lorenz
• geese hatchlings follow the first thing they see that moves (the object is usually the mother goose, in this experiment it was Konrad)
• Konrad was the first thing the hatchlings saw and they became imprinted on the scientist
• wherever he went, they followed

Question 28

Social Behavior

Answer 28

any kind of interaction between 2 or more animals, usually of the same species
-relatively new field of study, only developed in the 1960s

Question 29

Types of social behavior include

Answer 29

cooperation
agonistic
dominance hierarchies
territoriality
altruism

Question 30

Cooperation

Answer 30

enables individuals to carry out a behavior, such as hunting, which would be more successful done in a group than separately

Question 31

Agonistic Behavior

Answer 31

aggressive behavior

-involves a variety of threats or actual combat to settle disputes between individuals

Question 32

Agonistic Behavior:

Disputes are usually over

Answer 32

food
mates
shelter

Question 33

Agonistic behavior involves both

Answer 33

real aggressive behavior as well as ritualistic or symbolic behavior