Chapter 3 - The study of animal behavior and its neural basis: A brief history Flashcards
Aristotle (384-322 BC) and his approach
Although inductive and comparative on the one side, is also anecdotal, vitalistic, teleological, and anthropomorphic on the other side
Inductive
Use specific examples to make generalizations
Anecdotal
One-time observation
Vitalistic
Life/alive
Teleological
Animal behavior is explained by contributing it to its end goal/purpose
Anthropomorphic
Explanation of biological phenomenon from a human point of view
Vis vitalis
- Intrinsic life principle
- When something was unknown and they couldn’t explain it, they would contribute it to vis vitalis
Rene Descartes (1596-1650) and mind body dualism
- Mind is completely separate from matter
– Mind cannot be explained in scientific terms
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
- Wrote “On the Origin of Species”
- Principles of evolution apply not only to morphological characteristics, but also to behavior
Homology / homologous
- Similarity between traits that is due to shared ancestry
- Structure that is evolutionarily conserved; common ancestor
– Functions do not have to be the same in the different organisms (e.g., flying and digging)
Homoplasy
- Similarity between traits that is not derived from a common ancestor
- “Convergent evolution”
– Example –> forelimbs looking similar because they have the same function (does not mean they have a common ancestor)
Douglas Spalding (1841-1877)
Discovered phenomenon of imprinting in domestic chicken
Conway Lloyd Morgan (1852-1936) and Morgan’s canon (1894)
“In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological scale” –> if you hear hoof beats, think horses not zebras
Douglas Spalding and Conway Lloyd Morgan introduced…
Experimental and objective approaches to the study of animal behavior
Jakob von Uexkull (1864-1944) and umwelt
- That part of the environment which is perceived after sensory and central filtering
– Humans and bees have different umwelts because they have different ranges of color vision