Final Flashcards
An understanding of animal behavior is necessary to better
- care for animals in captivity
- understand human behavior
- manage animals in the wild
- train animals
In the case of the peppered moth, changes in the moth population have occurred in response to the action of predators as the environment has changed due to
pollution
reflex
relationship between specific event and simple response to that event
Modal action patterns resemble reflexes in that they
often are reliably elicited by a particular kind of event
Not responding to a stimulus because the stimulus is not perceived by the sense organs is called
peripheral filtering
central filtering change because
animal can learn whether or not a stimulus has significance
response thresholds
degree of stimulation necessary to elicit response
existence of song dialects allows birds to
choose mate adapted to its region
Harlow’s studies found that, for a growing monkey,
play with peers could compensate for lack of maternal contact.
Evidence that species affinities in sheep and goats are learned early in life include sheep and goats raised together in isolated pairs
prefer company of species they were raised with instead of their own species.
Evidence that species imprinting is not irreversible includes the fact that male sheep and goats that had been reared w/ opposite species came to prefer members of their own species if
housed exclusively with them for about 60–90 days.
intensity of behavior
How much effort animal exerts to perform behavior
A shallow slope on the cumulative record indicates
- low rate of responding
- difficult task to learn
habituation
- loss or reduction of old responses
- has been observed even in single-celled organisms
Pavlov found that conditioning was not achieved as fast with animals that had
lots of anxiety or no anxiety
In Pavlovian conditioning, the stimuli and the animal’s behavior are
independent of each other
The logic statement event X occurs if and only if event Y occurs defines what is meant by
contingency
Accidentally reinforcing behavior can lead to
superstitious behavior
Shaping by successive approximations
involves selectively reinforcing performances closer to the final, desired behavior.
A chain of behaviors holds together because the
animal is going from a new behavior to an old, familiar behavior.
primary reinforcers
- strengthen the behavior they follow
- are innately effective
generalized reinforcers
- can be used in wide variety of situations
- include, for example, money
Premack principle
observation that high-probability behavior reinforces low-probability behavior
The fact that stimuli habituated in one context may not be habituated in a different situation tells us that habituation
is context specific
Taste aversion conditioning used to deter coyotes from attacking sheep involves
placing an illness-inducing substance in sheep carcasses.
fixed ratio schedule
reinforcement is given after completion of specific number of responses
ex: Having an animal turn three circles in a row before getting reinforced
variable interval schedule
Time between reinforcement varies from one reinforcement to the next
Ex: Having an animal hold in a specific position until it hears the bridge
fixed interval schedule
Reinforcement is given after first response after specific period of time
variable ratio schedule
Number of responses required varies from one reinforcement to the next
When teaching an animal a signal which means it has done a behavior incorrectly, it is important to
shape the response that is desired
Reinforcing for attitude might more accurately be called reinforcing for
starting behavior w/ a lot of speed or power
The Breland’s experiences with instinctive drift reinforces the concept that
behavior is the result of an interaction between genes and the environment
The experiment wherein the chimpanzees solved the problem of reaching the bananas by stacking boxes and fitting sticks together illustrates
- latent learning
- insight learning
In spotted hyenas, high levels of male hormones
- are seen in females.
- result in females having masculinized genitalia.
- result in increased aggressiveness
Evidence supporting the idea that annual rhythms are controlled by endogenous mechanisms include the fact that animals kept in the laboratory under constant environmental conditions
continue to show annual rhythms
The example of different species of cricket frogs showing differences in their mating calls in areas where multiple species occur illustrates the evolutionary process of
character displacement
The fact that animals frequently communicate the same message using multiple sensory modalities is referred to as
redundancy
The fact that canaries learn new song elements each season suggests that
the original description of imprinting may be incorrect
The sound spectrograph work of Eugene Morton at the National Zoo has demonstrated
that the sound structure of vocalizations conveys much of the message.
A communication signal that conveys information about the communication itself is called
meta-communication
The basic method of behavioral ecology is to
compare similar species in different habitats.
Crook’s study of weaver birds led him to hypothesize that savanna-living species evolved the foraging and nesting behaviors they have because
seeds are patchy in distribution and locally superabundant.
Chimpanzees live in male-dominated societies while bonobos do not because
chimps have to compete w/ gorillas for food
problems of group living that animals must overcome include
- competition
- interference
- conspicuousness
Animals in groups can spend more time feeding than an individual alone becuse
they can more easily detect a predator
When a monkey interacts with other monkeys, its mother
backs it up
a calm and secure mother monkey
- instills these qualities in her offspring
- has offspring that easily explore their worlds
Within a troop of macaques
the matrilines have a dominance rank in relation to each other
young male rhesus play in order to
- form friendships
- learn individual personalities
In rhesus macaques, males get to become alpha male by
joining group and working up to top of hierarchy after years in group
Poor little rich boys typically leave their natal group
at 10 years old
Shark Bay is a good place to study dolphins because
the clear quiet water makes it easy to observe them
Mental powers exhibited by bottlenose dolphins include
- quick learning
- excellent memories
- can use knowledge to solve new problems
Female dolphins start having calves
in their early teens
What percentage of baby dolphins don’t survive their first year?
20%
the main source of mortality of baby dolphins is
shark predation
Young dolphins leave their mothers to
swim w/ other adolescents
In general, within the community, individuals form
small, constantly changing groups
Big brains have evolved in social mammals
to allow skills for manipulating social environment
Triangular relationships
indicate animals have multifaceted personalities
Compared to the dominance of territoriality, the dominance of a dominance hierarchy is
independent of where in space the interaction takes place
Compared to the dominance of territoriality, the dominance of a dominance hierarchy is
independent of where in space the interaction takes place
Stable hierarchies and territories are advantageous in that they
- reduce the incidence of harmful aggression.
- reduce the time devoted to potentially stressful social interactions.
- free up time and energy for behaviors important to survival and reproduction.
Stable hierarchies and territories are advantageous in that they
- reduce the incidence of harmful aggression.
- reduce the time devoted to potentially stressful social interactions.
- free up time and energy for behaviors important to survival and reproduction.
Because aggression and related behaviors are too risky to the well-being of individuals to engage in spontaneously in contexts which typically offer little or no benefit, natural selection doesn’t favor animals that
continually initiate aggressive encounters w/ conspecifics just for its own sake.
oxytocin is associated with
lactation
Female choice in mating is commonplace in polygynous mating systems because
the females invest much more than the males in each offspring.
Substandard sexual performance in farm animals can be caused by
methods of genetic selection
The greatest single stimulus for sexual arousal in male domestic animals is provided by
visual cues associated w/ immobility of the female when approached by the male.
The most important visual signal to the male that the female is ready to be mounted is the female
standing immobile
The chance of some young being left behind when the mother bird leads the young away from the nest is reduced by
synchronized hatching for species w/ precocious young
Placentophagia
is common in hider species
status signaling
- refers to animals having badges of rank.
- occurs in large groups where individual recognition is difficult.
Researchers can unintentionally influence dominance relations when trying to study animals by
- marking the animals to make recognition of individuals easier.
- causing the animals to come into closer proximity to each other than would be normal.
In-breeding is usually avoided by group-living animals by the mechanism of
one sex leaving group at maturity
Reciprocal altruism involves
- altruism directed toward a non-relative.
- an animal acting altruistically because of an expectation of a benefit in the future
Evidence that the behavior of blue tits and great tits opening milk bottles is an example of culture includes
the occurrence of the behavior gradually spread outwards from a central location.
Describe the two extremes seen in how alpha animals assert their dominance
- One extreme is where alpha animals are constantly asserting their authority over members of group by initiating agonistic displays and aggressive interactions
- other extreme is where high-ranking animals do not assert their dominance on frequent basis, instead conveying confidence and aloofness through body language
The researches at Sarasota Bay determined the sex, age, and family relationships of the animals
through hands-on examination
In Sarasota Bay, bands of dolphins swimming together are made up of related
females
event marker
A stimulus that indicates the precise action of the animal that is getting reinforced.
mark training
When the animal is trained to station on an object placed on the ground.
How do habituation and counter-conditioning differ?
- Counter-conditioning is an active process wherein keeper shapes animal’s behavior.
- Habituation is a passive process wherein keeper merely creates environment in which habituation can take place.
Some behaviors lend themselves to intermittent schedules better than other behaviors. What kinds of behaviors work well with intermittent schedules and what kinds don’t?
- Behaviors that work well w/ intermittent schedule are repetitive behaviors and duration behaviors.
- Those that do not work well are discrimination behaviors.
positive reinforcement
behavior leads to presentation of a desirable stimulus
this makes behavior more likely to occur again in future
EX: dog sits and owner gives the dog a cookie.
negative reinforcement
behavior leads to decrease or removal of aversive stimulus
this makes behavior more likely to occur again in future
EX: a rider wants his horse to go faster so he kicks it in the side. When the horse goes faster, the rider stops kicking the horse.
positive punishment
behavior leads to presentation of aversive stimulus
this makes behavior less likely to occur again in future
EX: a cat jumps onto the kitchen counter and the owner sprays the cat w/ water from a spray bottle.
negative punishment
behavior leads to decrease or removal of desirable stimulus
this makes behavior less likely to occur again in future
EX: a teenager stays out later than he was supposed to so his parents take away his privilege of using the family car.
What are the steps, in the correct order, involved in doing behavioral enrichment?
- Determine baseline behavior through observation.
- Set goals.
- Design and implement enrichment.
- Evaluate enrichment through observation.
Why does Gary think the SPIDER model is incomplete?
it does not explicitly require doing baseline observations before setting goals.
A quantitative approach to measuring intelligence assumes that each species
can do the task but will do it faster or make fewer mistakes if more intelligent.
Animals capable of discriminating on the basis of class concepts
may be capable of an unlimited number of concurrent discriminations
concept learning
- involving relative characteristics requires comparing the two choices.
- requires learning to recognize some common quality or characteristics
The fact that nectar-eating birds survive by foraging on a “win-shift” basis means
they would perform poorly on many tests of intelligence.
Characteristics of the model/rival approach used to train the African gray parrot Alex include:
the bird watched a person solve problems
A likely reference that the mud wasp uses to achieve a 20° angle to the horizontal for the opening of the neck of the funnel is
the pull of gravity
In the case of mud wasp funnel building, a complex task is broken down into a series of simpler tasks wherein
the tasks consist of cycles of repetitive behavior
In order to build their combs parallel to each other, bees utilize
their ability to detect the earth’s magnetic field
Evidence that weaverbird nest building has goal-oriented aspects include:
- birds get faster with practice.
- birds can repair damage to the nest.
It appears that bower construction in bowerbirds is a goal oriented behavior because
- adults improve year by year.
- the birds can repair damage to the bower
Aspects of lodge building by beavers that supports the idea that this is a goal-directed behavior include:
- beavers don’t always dig a burrow.
- the construction can be done in the reverse
sequence. - sometimes human structures are used instead of
building a lodge.
Teaching animals to use a language system has been used to draw conclusions about their intelligence
- from their use of the language.
- by using the language to ask them questions.
The different approaches taken to assess animal intelligence
make it difficult to compare the results from different studies
Quantitative abnormalities
behaviors seen at lower frequency in wild than in captivity.
floating limb
abnormal behavior that
- may provide the monkey with needed stimulation.
- has been observed in monkeys deprived of contact when young.
A fearful animal who cannot escape from the presence of humans may
- show submissive or cowering behaviors.
- threaten and attack.
Animals that are naturally less fearful of unfamiliar and startling stimuli are generally
more tameable
After 40 years of selection in Belyaev’s study, what percentage of foxes were categorized as most-tame?
70-80%
Malmkvist and Hansen concluded that tameness in minks is closely linked to an animal’s general emotional reactivity b/c mink selected for reduced fear of humans also showed
a) less fear of novel objects.
b) less fear of unfamiliar mink placed in their cage
c) increased willingness to mate in captivity.
Experiential phenomena which contribute heavily to the taming process include:
- habituation to humans
- positive associative conditioning
When domestic horse foals observed their mothers being fed by hand and brushed during the first 5 days after birth, they remained habituated to humans for at least
1 year
The response of the majority of mother-reared goats to being captured and restrained was to
show significant avoidance of captor
Aengus and Millam found that occasional handling of parent-reared orange-winged Amazon parrot chicks
could tame the birds
Reasons untamed beef cattle on rangeland show a shorter flight initiation distance when a person is on horseback than on foot include
- the body language of the horse does not communicate alarm.
- the human profile is masked by being on a horse.
A high degree of tameness is sometimes undesirable b/c highly tamed animals may
direct aggressive or sexual behaviors toward humans.
A handler can get large domestic animals to move forward in a chute by walking
past the animal in the opposite direction within animal’s flight zone.
A handler sorting animals through a gate needs to be good at
reading the body language and intentions of the approaching animals.
When moving animals from one pasture or field to another, to get them to move in the desired direction more quickly and efficiently, the animals should be provided with
a following stimulus such as one or more riders on horseback.
To prevent isolation-induced panic or stress, an animal
that requires treatment should be
accompanied by a familiar conspecific.
Target training has been used with horses to train them
- to lead.
- to stand quietly for veterinary exams.
- for entering stalls and trailers.
Target training is appealing as a training method because
- it uses only positive reinforcement.
- animals frequently appear eager to learn the task at hand.
Clickers or whistles are often used as bridging stimuli because they
- produce sounds unique to the animal’s living environment
- can be easily heard
Compared to dogs which are heelers, those which are herders
- circle around and gather animals.
- keep the stock in a group and moving forward.
More than half of the producers who started using llamas to protect their sheep had their losses cut to
zero percent
Some atypical behaviors may be beneficial to an animal when they are an attempt by the animal to adapt to
an atypical or impoverished environment
Atypical behaviors are most likely to develop when animals are prevented from
- developing their “normal” behavioral repertoire.
- exhibiting their “normal” behavioral repertoire
Causes of atypical behaviors include:
- unnatural social groupings.
- forced exposure to humans and novel objects.
- hormone imbalance.
Approaches used to treat atypical behaviors in captive animalshave included:
- pharmacological techniques.
- reinforcement of alternative behaviors.
- punishment.
- all of the above
The general categories that environmental enrichment falls into are:
- foraging opportunities
- structural complexity
- novelty-induced sensory stimulation.
Compared to modification of the physical environment, enhancing the social environment of captive animals is
less subject to habituation
Enrichment devices which may be more effective than toys or novel objects are those which
- challenge the cognitive abilities.
- do not lead to excessive frustration and stress
Non-nutritive sucking (sucking on conspecifics and object sucking) in dairy calves can be reduced by
- allowing the animals to suckle a dry or wet artificial teat after a milk meal is consumed.
- feeding larger quantities of milk.
- slowing the rate at which milk flows from an artificial teat.
Evidence suggesting that the opportunity to engage in chain pulling/chewing can reduce stress in intensively reared pigs includes the fact that chain pulling/chewing
reduced plasma concentrations of corticosteroids.
Compared to when feeding times were the same each day, capuchins fed on an unpredictable schedule
had higher than normal levels of cortisol
Primary cause of feather pecking in captive chickens is
lack of substrate
Combining counterconditioning with desensitization provides a more long-lasting solution to separation anxiety than desensitization alone because counterconditioning creates a more positive emotional state in the animal due to
addition of food reinforcement
Dog Appeasing Pheromone is
- synthetic version of a chemical substance produced by lactating female dogs
- believed to have a calming effect on puppies.
Feliway
- gives the animal an immediate sense of “home.”
- reduces the animal’s motivation to mark the area.
The best way to achieve behavioral enrichment is to
provide the animal with some control over its environment.
The result of training the jaguars to strike the moving paddle device was an increase in
time spent in alert reclining
The results of giving enrichment devices to the gibbons and diana monkeys at the Portland Zoo demonstrated
individual animals responded with different levels of interest to the enrichment opportunities.
The first enrichment protocol implemented with the polar bears
- reduced begging.
- increased activity level.
- did not reduce aggression.
The experiments done with bears at the National Zoo and honey logs showed that
- animals spend the most time with enrichment items when they are first introduced.
- interest in old logs could be renewed by adding new logs.
Studies on animals subjected to behaviorally enriched zoo enclosures have shown that
animals will work for their food even when they do not have to.
Training zoo animals to lock up in their night quarters at any time of day
allows you to provide more enrichment
In the case of the diabetic drill, blood draw training was accomplished by training him to
focus on grabbing a rod at the end of a tube.
The idea of imprint training is to
- desensitize the young horse to scary things.
- teach the animal when it is best able to learn.
The main reason zoos have needed to train elephants is to
care for their feet
Free-contact training of elephants
relies on the trainer dominating the animal.
It has become necessary for zoos to find ways to manage elephants other than free-contact training b/c
- keepers change positions more often than in the past.
- concerns about liability
Advantages of protected-contact training of elephants include:
- keepers can work safely with even aggressive animals.
- public views protected contact as more humane than free contact.
Disadvantages of protected-contact training of elephants include:
expense
Protected-contact training of elephants
- may help zoo managers to see the value of husbandry training of zoo animals.
- means the trainer-animal relationship is based on cooperation rather than dominance.
Briefly describe some of the methods of behavioral enrichment practiced at Danish zoos which are not commonly practiced in American zoos and describe the rationale for such methods.
Allowing animals to breeding even though the offspring may need to be euthanized. Feeding whole carcasses of euthanized animals to zoo carnivores, including some euthanized zoo animals.
The rational is that captivity places limits on how much of an animal’s behavioral repertoire it can express. Allow animals to breed and feed on whole carcasses allows them to express a greater percentage of their behavioral repertoire.
What is meant by entrainment when it is used in reference to circadian rhythms? Give an example.
Modification of the endogenous rhythm to match the environment.
EX: the human circadian rhythm is about 25 hours but it becomes 24 hours as the result of exposure to the daily light:dark cycle.
Briefly explain how the primate graph supports the idea that sexual dimorphism in primates is the result of sexual selection (male-male competition).
The species which show more sexual dimorphism, i.e., males are much bigger than females, tend to be those species which are polygamous, i.e., sex ratio in the breeding group is 2 or more females per male. Polygamous species will experience greater competition between males for mates.
What are the four questions that can be asked about any behavior? Indicate which are ultimate questions and which are proximate questions.
How does behavior develop (proximate)
What is mechanism of how it occurs? (proximate)
What is function of behavior? (ultimate)
What is evolutionary history? (ultimate)
trace conditioning
When conditioned stimulus occurs followed by unconditioned stimulus w/ no overlap
appetitive conditioning
conditioning using something that is reinforcing
defense conditioning
conditioning using something that is aversive
pseudoconditioning
when animal seems to have been conditioned but was actually reacting due to sensatization
What is trouble w/ nature-nurture debate?
It creates artificial divide and implies that it is one or the other when in reality it is both nature and nurture that plays role in behavior
What are the assumptions on which the natural science approach to studying behavior is based?
behaviors are caused
causes precede their effects
all causes are natural phenomenon
simplest explanation that fits data is best
ABA reversal design
experimental design where by animals’ baselines are recorded (A) then stimulus being tested is added and animals reaction is recorded (B) and then stimulus is removed to see if animal returns to its baseline (A) to make sure it was stimulus that caused change and not coincidence
