Fay- Animal learning Flashcards
1- Describe what learning is, discuss why learning is critical for survival and give an example
learning can be defined as a relatively permanent change in behaviour as a result of individual experience ( schacter 2020), it can be difficult to define more specifically than that as there are many forms of learning AND
learning is key because our environment constantly changes on a micro spatial scale, and over time on a macro scale as well ( climate change) and we cant keep up with just instincts AND
when another species ( predator) learns e.g. snakes targeting baby squirrels then a related species (prey) has to learn e.g. ingests snake skin and licks offspring to conceal the smell of a baby
1- why research animals not humans
we have conducted far more research on animal learning as we can manipulate their behaviour more flexibly and not in line with the more strict ethical guidelines we have with humans- we can poke and prod them. the neuroscientific findings are applicable as neural circuitry has some similarities
- Describe basic learning processes (habituation, sensitization)
habituation- continued presentation of a stimulus leading to a reduction in response to that stimuli ( learn that its not a big deal and stops wasting time on responses) e.g. leaves waving in the breeze
sensitization- continued presentation of a stimulus leading to increased response to that stimuli e.g. anemone tentacles waving in the current are dangerous
1- Summarize how learning changes over the course of an animal lifetime
learning undergoes many changes in an animals lifetime and between different species. some animals are capable of learning pre birth e..g superb fairy wrens sing a specific ‘pass code’ to distinguish their own children. animals that undergo metamorphosis are interesting as they become a completely different animal but commonly retain what they learnt pre metamorphosis. normal animals unedrgo important learning in early development e.g. imprinting on parents ( fillial) and learn to me more risk averse/ fear behaviours in adolescence as this is the time they first navigate the world alone. addditionally, learning can change in old age as it becomes very difficult to unlearn things and more complex learning e.g. mazes becomes hard.
2- pavlovian conditioning
this is the classic guy he paired a unconditioned stimulus ( food) that illicited an unconditioned response ( salivating) with an conditioned stimulus ( whistle). aquisition phase is when the unconditioned and confitioned stimuli are presented together. repeated pairings lead to the conditioned stimulus evoking the conditioned salivation response without the unconditioned stimulus
2- operant conditioning
- positive= causes likelihood of behaviour to increase
- neative= causes likelihood of behaviour to decrease
- positive reinforcement- adding a reward to the environment// have a sweetie
- positive punishment- adding a punishment// have a shock
- negative reinforcment- removing a negative stimuli- e.g. pressing an alarm clock to stop loud beepies
- negative punishment- removing money through a fine will prevent people from driving in a bus lane
2- describe and explain catagory vs. contigency vs. causal learning
catagory- low level, animals can distinguish between different stimuli in order to get their treaty
contingency- learning through gathering predictabilities between behaviours and consequences e.g. one thing following ( being contingent on) another e.g. the allergist task:
causal- knowing the cause and effect relationship between events, highest level and appears to be only relevant for humans
2- special little types of conditioning and the conditions of conditioning
srimuli generalisation- similar stimuli to the conditioned stimuli can result in a less strong conditioned response
extinction training- over time, stimuli presented without the unconditioned stimuli over time the association weakens and behaviour is unlearnt
second order conditioning- they have this super conditioned response stimuli relationship. then associate a new stimuli with the old stimuli. even tho it was never associated it can be conditioned to illicit the required response
conditions: it has to be predictible/ contingent and frequently paired and the timing/ contiguity has to be close enough for the association to be made in the first place
2- what is successive approximation
gradual moulding of behaviours e.g. rewarding each part of learning how to do a push up
3- discuss how the brain responds to learning at a gross, neuronal and synaptic level
1) gross brain level
- reversal learning is linked to frontal cortex
- motor learning linked to temporal/ parietal lobes
-> measured using fMRI scanning and brain lesions
2) neuronal pathway level
- imprinting in chicks is linked to visual wulst and telencephalon, STRENGHTENED by pavlovian conditioning. just one trial can create new pathways
-> measured using neural tracing ( big ass neurons)
3) neuron level
- enriched environments are linked to dendritic branching and neurogenesis
-> looking at it with a microscope
4) synapse level
- hebbs law shtuff
3- explain what happens at a neural level with different SIMPLE forms of learning
1) Habituation
-> occurs without sensory neurons: motor neuron is stimulated and over time the response is diminished
2) Stimulus generalisation
-> CS may excite many sensory neurons, each stimulating different motor neurons. different stimulus can excite different motor neurons
3) pavlovian conditioning
- > over time the connections between neurons is strengthened
3- what is hebbs rule and how does it work
2 cells active at the same time become associated so that activity in 1 facilitates activity in the other
- long term potentiation: the process explaining hebbs rule- as one neuron repeatedly fires exciting the other. also known as a hebbian synapse
- neurons that fire together wire together- oooh fire friends but this is a joke its not physically touchin
3- explain the differences between long term depression and long term potentian and how it applies to long term europlasticity
long term depression- - over many many months, synapses can become weaker with infrequent activation- this is known as long term depression
- which is the opposite of LTP and stops neurons firing via LTP to make way for new information
- evenetually, associations dont become helfpul and you just want another association
- if you dont need it- you lose it
- neuronal networks die with age, the only way to keep them alive is to continue to learn and have novel experiences as neurogenesis peaks at 2 and then drops off #flop so learning is limited
3- discuss evidence for long term potentiation
- his is confirmed by Bliss and lomo ( 1973) who implanted electrodes into rabbits brains under anaethesia to activate a neuronal pathway entering the hippocampus called the prefront path. 1 electrode was chucked in the hippocampus to measure neuron excitation and the other was stimulating a pulse to excited neuron in preforant path
- they found that when they put a high frequency pulse in the brain it led to a high neuronal activation in the hippocampus. however, months after if you give it another low frequency pulse then it has a far greater reaction due to LTP
- but dont maintain the pathway forever
- this can also occur similar to associate learning as strong pathways can increase the activation of weaker pathways around it, oh yeah i remember this its just like this!
- in this instance, it looks like this reflects behaviour
4- define social learning and who said it
learning influenced by observing or interacting with another individual or its products ( Heyes, 1994)
4- what are the limitations of this definition
- not just observation , other senses are commonly used e.g. smell
- animals can learn from what other animals leave behind e.g. food left/ scent trail
4- what does thorndike’s research say about social learning
thorndike put a cat in a box, over time it learnt how to escape through trial and error learning, however when the cat could see another cat escape it did not immediatlely understand how to leave the box, therefore thorndike concluded there was no sicail learning BUT….
- cat in box couldnt see stuff properly
- cats are quite antisocial so their social learning may be less than
4- benefits of social learning
- facilitates the transfer of information between individuals without inheritance
- fuck off time consuming trial and error learning
- more accurate than other forms of learning
- wider benefits such as traditions (more than 2 individuals behavioural patterns) and culture ( widely accepted way of doing things)
4- research that evidences the benfits of social learning
- in the wild,
- social deprivation- harlows monkeys
- enculturation, teaching animal your culture
- crossover, better social learning then better other types of learning
4- why study social learning in primates and how is it studied
- humans love ourselves, anthropocentrism means we think humans are the best species and we do so much primate research to confirm this for ourselves. testing the cultural intelligence hypothesis
- social diffusion experiment: treat inside glass box, teach animal how to open box and then put him back with his mates ‘seeding’ and observe how he teaches the other animals how to open the box to get their treatie
-there is normally multiple ways to open the box so you track how most of them do it
4- what is the cultural intelligence hypothesis
- we are such boffins because of opposable thumbs BUT ALSO our very comparatively high socio-cognitive skills. as we are such a social species, we learn so much from eachother and then develop culture and its culture that helped us dominate the world
(Hermann et al, 2007 // Whiten & van schalk, 2007) - research shows that human children are similar cognitively to apes e.g. with a puzzle box but vastly outperform using social cognition tasks
4- define what mechanisms, strategy and consequences are in social learning
mechanisms- how the learning occurs
strategy- why the learning occurs, who is learnt from
consequence- the overall outcome of learning
4- name the different mechanisms in social learning
1) inadvertent: passively attending to anothers behaviour
-direct learning: imitations e.g. john smack nut with rock i smack nut with rock / emulation e.g. john have open nut, lets try to do it similarly BUT NOT EXACTLY SIMILAR
- indirect learning: stimulus enhancement/ response facilitation
2) teaching: learning through purposeful social interaction, some people think teaching is not a form of learning oooh dramaaaa: pro-social behaviour to help others learn quicker- there is a naiive observer, cost to the teacher and bi directional feedback. e.g. tandem running in ants. teaching may only be used when its important
4) social learning strategies
- frequency dependent social learning strategies: doing the behaviour performed by most of the other individuals in the group, discrimination learning
- model based: following the behaviour of the dominant/ elder
- content based: doing the behaviour that results in the highest pay off e.g. foraging strategies that results in the most apples
e.g. it took 15 years for potato washing in Japanese macaques to become mainstream whereas we love to copy
