Development of behaviour

Question 1

Definition of horizontal transmission?

Answer 1

• behaviour passed from other individuals in the group
• no specific relation
• learn simply from being around them

Question 2

Definition of vertical transmission?

Answer 2

• between parent and offspring

- behaviours passed down through generations

Question 3

What are the different types of learning?

Answer 3

• innate learning
• maturation
• chance
• self-learning
• learning from others
• insight learning

Question 4

Definition of innate behaviour?

Answer 4

• behaviours that they are born/hatched with
• performed fully functioning from birth
• instinctive behaviour

Question 5

Definition of fixed action pattern?

Answer 5

• pattern of behaviours that don’t change regardless of any affecting factors
• essential for survival
• under tight genetic control and performed the same by everyone

Question 6

Example of fixed action pattern?

Answer 6

• goose
• if an egg is found outside a nest they will roll it back
• if the egg is removed before they’ve finished the rolling behaviour pattern the goose continues to try and roll it anyway

Question 7

Definition of sign stimulus/releaser?

Answer 7

• essential cues needed to allow a fixed-action pattern to be performed
• presence of a specific characteristic that’s identifiable by the animal results in a behaviour

Question 8

Definition of supernormal stimulus?

Answer 8

-elicits an exaggerated response

Question 9

Example of a supernormal stimulus?

Answer 9

• red chest of a robin
• robins will attack others, so the red alerts them that another is nearby to direct a vicious behaviour against
• can go after other red things by accident due to association

Question 10

Definition of maturation behaviour?

Answer 10

-how the instinctive or innate behaviours can change over time based on experience

Question 11

Example of maturation behaviour?

Answer 11

• Satin Bowerbird (ptilonorhynchus violaceus)
• males build structures out of materials to attract females
• when gonads develop and testosterone increases their plummage changes from looking like a female to looking like a male
• looking like a female when young allows them to watch the older males and how they make structures without being chased off

Question 12

Definition of chance behaviour?

Answer 12

• learnt by accident
• out of control of the animal, determined by single or few specific environmental factors
• e.g. changes in diet or temperature

Question 13

Example of chance behaviour?

Answer 13

• turtle eggs
• temperature of the egg determines the proportions of genders in the offspring
• cooler it is the more that are male

Question 14

Definition of self-learning behaviour?

Answer 14

• individual can learn, practice and mature behaviours on it’s own
• there can be a social component through learning by others

Question 15

Example of self-learning behaviour?

Answer 15

• imprinting in great tit chicks
• if raised by a blue tit then it would imitate the blue tit song and the females would prefer blue tits in breeding rather than the behaviours of their own species

Question 16

Definition of social learning?

Answer 16

• learning from others

- learnt through observing the actions of others and then replicating the behaviours

Question 17

Example of social learning?

Answer 17

• meerkats
• teach identification of food, taught to bite off the end of a scorpion tail before eating so it can’t poison
• give a dead scorpion without tail first, then dead scorpion with tail to practice removal, then alive one to do the entire behaviour

Question 18

Definition of insight learning?

Answer 18

• sudden realisation of a solution to a problem

- learnt from relationships between others and their stimuli

Question 19

Example of insight learning?

Answer 19

• japanese macaque
• female learnt that humans wash their food in water and passed the behaviour onto their daughters till it spread through the group