Credit test 1 Flashcards
Protection of animals kept in captivity
Farm Animals
living conditions appropriate to physiological and ethological needs of farm animals
Protection of animals kept in captivity
Pet Animals
appropriate conditions to maintain its physiological functions and satisfy its biological needs
Protection of animals kept in captivity
Laboratory Animals
to satisfy their physiological and ethological needs
RECORDS ON ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR
Africa – ancient Egypt
description of chicken behaviour during hatching
depiction of animal behaviour in Egyptian art
On Aims and Methods in Ethology (1963) - defines four questions, categories of explanations of animal behavior
Function (Adaptation):
– Mechanism (Causation):
– Development (Ontogeny):
– Evolutionary history:
animal behavior Function
(Adaptation): How does the behavior impact the animal’s chance of survival and reproduction?
animal behavior Mechanism
– (Causation): What are the stimuli that elicit the response? How has the response been modified by recent learning?
animal behavior Development
– (Ontogeny): How does the behavior change with age? What early experiences are necessary for the behavior to be demonstrated?
animal behavior Evolutionary history:
How does the behavior compare with similar behavior in related species? How might the behavior have arisen through the evolutionary development of the species, genus, or group?
Ethogram describes two types of behavioural elements
- actions (events) - time elements - body movements (a bite, a jump); their duration is short and their frequency can be measured per unit of time; they can occur repeatedly - bouts, intervals between bouts are gaps
- states - last longer (sitting, laying); total duration during observation period may be measured
• Europe
- cave wall paintings of animals, hunting scenes and other graphic illustrations of prehistoric life (34,000 - 10,000 BC) – Italy, Spain, France
• Africa – ancient Egypt
• description of chicken behaviour during hatching – pharaoh Achnaton 1,348 – 1,331 BC (as early as 3,000 BC the ancient Egyptians used artificials brood chambers to hatch large numbers of chickens´ eggs )
• depiction of animal behaviour in Egyptian art
- Egyptians’ animal imagery reveals that they were equally adept at reproducing the natural behaviour of both wild and domesticated species.
• Mesopotamia
– animal sculptures
• Ancient India
– sculpture, painting, architecture, literature, animal themes are frequent in ancient Indian art
• Ancient Greece and Roma
– animals including exotic species were kept for many reasons → frequent literary records (Herodotus, Anaxagoras, Aristotle….)
• Aristotle (384-322 BC)
- Historia animalium (orig. Historiai peri ta zoa) – 350 BC
* studies the animal kingdom in all its forms such as their behaviour, instincts, activities and nature
• Galen (129-200)
• description of innate feeding behaviour (food preference tests)
Edward L. Thorndike (1874-1949)
- research on animal learning
* the first experimental apparatus designed to study operant behaviour - „puzzle box“
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936)
• research in temperament, conditioning and involuntary reflex actions
COMPARATIVE AND EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
two approaches:
Behaviourism
Cognitive Psychology
Behaviourism
- founder John B. Watson
- animal behaviour can be explained by observations from the outside
- aimed to clarify animal behaviour patterns by objective controlled experiments
- based on simple action of the animals it is possible to learn about the complex organization of behaviour
- Burrhus F. Skinner (1904-1990) - an operant conditioning chamber (Skinner box) used in the experimental analysis of behaviour to study animal behaviour
Cognitive Psychology
- founder Edward C. Tolman
- criticizes many radical statements of J. B. Watson
- behaviour is not only a simple reaction to stimuli, it is influenced by inheritance, previous experiences, a current mental state … (behaviour understood as external manifestations of internal mental processes)
Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hillaire (1805-1861) - coined the term ethology
ethology = studies in natural environment
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
ethology = science, the purpose of which would be explanation of individual and national differences in character
William Morton Wheeler (1865-1937)
ethology = studies of animals in their natural environment
Oskar Heinroth (1871–1945)
- the first to use the term ethology in its present meaning, true founder of the study of animal behaviour seen as a branch of zoology
Methodological approach
- observation of animals in their natural environment
- asking questions not only about how behaviour is controlled but also about what behaviour is for and how it evolved
- study of both proximate and ultimate causation
- observation of many animal species (both vertebrates and invertebrates)
– Function (Adaptation):
How does the behavior impact the animal’s chance of survival and reproduction?
– Mechanism (Causation):
What are the stimuli that elicit the response? How has the response been modified by recent learning?
– Development (Ontogeny):
How does the behavior change with age? What early experiences are necessary for the behavior to be demonstrated?
– Evolutionary history:
How does the behavior compare with similar behavior in related species? How might the behavior have arisen through the evolutionary development of the species, genus, or group?
• Evolution of behaviour
Development of behaviour during evolution – how has the behaviour changed during evolution? How might the behaviour have arisen through the evolutionary development of the species, genus, or group? How does it help animals to survive and reproduce?
• Ontogeny of behaviour (Prenatal and postnatal development)
How, within the lifetime of an animal, does behaviour develop? Development usually involves an interplay between genetically programmed changes and environmentally influenced behaviour.
• Mechanisms of behavior
What causes current behaviour of an animal (now, today, this year)? What are the stimuli that elicit the response?
ultimate causation.
Evolution shaped species-specific behaviour –
proximate causation
Mechanisms and ontogeny determine the specific form of behaviour in the moment –
Description of Animal Behaviour
- Reflexes –
- Fixed action patterns,
- Functional behaviour systems
- Appetitive vs. consummatory behaviour
Description of Animal Behaviour
• Reflexes –
simple, automatic responses to a stimulus; the most basic form of elecited behaviour (consistent, unchangable)
Description of Animal Behaviour
• Fixed action patterns,
modal action patterns (innate), a fixed sequence of responses elicited by a specific stimulus; typical for a particular species; more complex than simple reflexes;
Description of Animal Behaviour
• Functional behaviour systems
(sexual, maternal, feeding behaviour…) – various behaviour traits serve to overarching goal
Description of Animal Behaviour
• Appetitive vs. consummatory behaviour
- appetitive behaviour serve to bring the organism into contact with the stimuli that will release the consummatory behaviour (consummation or completion of a species´ typical response sequence)
Factors affecting the animal’s response to stimuli
- Different sensitivity of sensory organs
- Detection of biologically important stimuli – stimulus filtration (urce…)
- Motivation - responses to stimuli depend on motivation
Motivation
Quantity of motivation
Feedback model - motivation influenced by consequences of behaviour
Motivation
Quality of motivation
Continuity of motivational states – different motivation at different stages of behaviour
Priority of behaviour systems (unknown object → exploration first, then consummation or play…)
Two motivations present at the same time – motivational conflict (causal factor for many behaviour systems are present at the same time, yet animal can generally only do one thing at a time)
Conflict Behaviour
(collision of two motivations)
Inhibition
– the most common outcome in a conflict situation is that the behaviour system with the highest level of causal factors will be expressed and all the other systems will be suppressed
Ambivalent behaviour
– a behaviour pattern containing elements of behaviour patterns belonging to two or more behaviour systems, these components occur in rapid succession
Simultaneous ambivalence
– a behaviour pattern containing elements of behaviour patterns belonging to two or more behaviour systems, these components occur simultaneously
Redirected behaviour
– a behaviour pattern belonging to a behaviour system that is activated, but which is directed to a stimulus that does not normally activate that behaviour system
Displacement behaviour
– a behaviour pattern belonging to a behaviour system different from the behaviour systems that are expected to be activated in a conflict situation
Mechanoreceptors
balance, equilibrioception, or vestibular sense is the sense which allows an organism to sense body movement, direction, and acceleration, and to attain and maintain postural equilibrium and balance.
Echolocation
is the use of sound waves and echoes to determine where objects are in space. Bats use echolocation to navigate and find food in the dark. To echolocate, bats send out sound waves from their mouth or nose. When the sound waves hit an object they produce echoes. The echo bounces of the object and returns to the bats ears.
Sensory Organs
- Vision
- Mechanoreceptors: touch
- Audition, hearing
- Chemoreception: olfaction, taste
- Electric organs and receptors
- Magnetic sense
Vision
The limits of vision depend on several factors which include:
- The optical properties of the eye
- The properties of light absorbing filters through which light must pass before reaching the photoreceptors.
- The light absorbing properties of the photoreceptors themselves
- The reflectivity of tissues that lie behind the photoreceptors.
Specific behaviour to obtain sensory perception
- Rotation of ears – sound direction detection
- Head motion
- Head tilt – focus
- Flehmen
Combination of Sensory Stimuli
e.g. Orientation in pigeons
- a number of possible navigational aids – olfaction (olfactory map) – magnetic field mechanism – magnetic compass – sun compass – vision and memory - „visual landmarks“
Magnetic Sense
• geomagnetic field is used for orientation
Electric organs
- muscular organ (more accurately, derived from muscle) common to all electric fish used for the purposes of creating an electric field; a behavior used for navigation, communication and also sometimes for the incapacitation of prey
- electroreception refers to the biological ability to sense electrical impulses. As water is a better conductor than air, electroreception is more common in aquatic creatures. Individuals utilize this sense to locate living organisms as sources of electrical energy
Taste
– related to food consumption
– identifies properties of food and other items
– molecules must dissolve in saliva and stimulate taste receptors of the tongue
- sweet: perceived by majority of mammals.
- salty: taste of NaCl
- acid: animals avoid it (bacterial decomposition causes acidity of feeds)
- bitter: avoided by animals - many plants produce bitter and toxic alkaloids that protect them from being eaten by animals
Olfaction
- enables to identify food, trace prey, avoid toxic substances and predators
- enables to identify friendly individuals of own species, find sexual partners
• stimulus = odorant - volatile substance with molecular mass 15-300. Most odorants can be dissolved in fats; they are of organic origin
Pheromones – communication, identification of opposite sex, marking, orientation
Description of Animal Behaviour
ETHOGRAM
Catalogue (a list of behaviour elements that can be detected by an observer) - and it is but a part of the entire behavioural repertoire of an animal (= all behaviours that the animal shows during its lifetime)
→ this catalogue is called ethogram - it describes behaviour
-the appearance of the behaviour: laying, standing
-spatial relations: arrival, leaving
