Imitation and Teaching

Question 1

What are the five mechanisms of social learning mistaken for true imitation?

Answer 1

Instrumental learning
Stimulus enhancement
Social facilitation
Contagion (or observational learning)
Emulation

Question 2

What can lead to instrumental learning being confused with imitation

Answer 2

Poor experimental design

Question 3

Give an example of instrumental learning being confused with imitation

Answer 3

Imo the Japanese Macaque
Scientists put out rice and potatoes for macaques, onto sand.
One day Imo took potato and put it into the water and the sand fell off. could sort rice from sand in same way.
Both behaviours spread through the group quickly, so researchers thought it good evidence of imitation.
But to study Imo’s behaviour the researchers put out more food whenever the behaviour was seen.
Effectively rewarding the behaviour. Could be others learned through stimulus enhancement (the sea is important) and instrumental learning (carry food to the sea and you get more food).

Question 4

What is intrumental learning?

Answer 4

learning of an association between an action and an outcome.

Question 5

What is stimulus enhancement?

Answer 5

learning by watching others that a particular object or area is of interest, leading to investigation of that object or area.

Question 6

Give an example of stimulus enhancement being confused with imitation

Answer 6

Early 70’s milk delivered to the door in bottles with foil caps.
Blue and great tits started to peck open the lids and drink the cream on top of the milk.
This behaviour spread all across the UK surprisingly quickly - assumed imitation
EXPERIMENT -
3 groups of birds given training trial:
1) Watch demonstrator bird open bottle
2) Just get bottle, opened previously by bird
3) Given closed bottle
THEN: Each group given test trial = closed bottle, and were timed how long they took to open it.

Question 7

What was the expected result for the experiment with blue tits and milk (stimulus enhancement?)

Answer 7

Expected result: If imitation, Group 1 should be fastest as demonstrator present to imitate.
If stimulus enhancement, then knowing there’s food in the bottle will make birds try to open it, so Groups 1 and 2 should be the same speed, and group 3 slower.

Question 8

What were the results of the stimulus enhancement experiment?

Answer 8

Groups 1 and 2 equally fast to learn to open the bottle
Conclusion: presence of demonstrator didn’t help
Group 3 slower
Conclusion: Lack of experience of finding food in bottle meant these birds didn’t investigate bottle as soon

Question 9

What is social facilitation?

Answer 9

performance of an already known behaviour by an animal increases the probability of other animals also engaging in that behaviour

Question 10

Why is social facilitation advantageous?

Answer 10

Advantageous because safer and need less vigilance.

If it’s safe for someone to do an activity, chances are it’s safe for you to do it too.

Question 11

What is contagion or Observational Conditioning?

Answer 11

the observer “catches the mood” of the demonstrator, and copies its general attitude to the novel object.
example :e.g. learning to mob a predator by observing the response of a demonstrator. (blackbird)
humans - bobo doll experiment

Question 12

Describe an experiment that demonstrates contagion

Answer 12

Bobo Doll Experiment to demonstrate contagion:
3 stages to experiment:
1) Preschool children did art project while:
For Group 1 – adult calm playing with quiet toy; ignored nearby Bobo doll
For Group 2 – adult attacked Bobo doll with physical attack while making violent comments
2) Each child alone had their aggression raised by being shown some toys, then told “the other kids can play with these but not you”.
3) Each child was taken into a new room where the bobo doll was, and given choice of
Non-aggressive toys : Tea set, crayons, teddies, farm animals
Aggressive toys: Mallet and peg board, dart gun
Results: Children who had seen a calm adult, chose mainly non-aggressive toys and were nice to the bobo doll.
Children who had seen an aggressive adult chose aggressive toys and attacked the doll violently.

Question 13

What is emulation?

Answer 13

when an animal understands the goal of a behavioural sequence, but gets to that goal by its own means, discovered by trial and error, not by imitating the exact moves of the demonstrator.

Question 14

Describe an experiment used to describe emulation

Answer 14

Need a task that can be done two ways. e.g. “mechanical fruit”
Fruit opened by 1) twisting and pulling or 2) poking out the fastening rods.
If emulation, we expect no correlation between demonstrator’s choice of opening technique and observer’s.
If true imitation, expect good correlation; observer should do what demonstrator did.
emulation vs imitation in chimps and human children aged 2, 3 and 4 years.
Demonstrator was adult, familiar to each group.
Chimps much more likely to use own method - emulation.
As kids got older, they imitated more and emulated less

Question 15

What is true imitation?

Answer 15

when an animal learns a new behaviour or sequence of movements which lead to a particular goal, by watching a demonstrator carry out that sequence of actions.

Question 16

What animal has shown true imitation in an experiment?

Answer 16

Birds were given new feeding dishes with lids, which could be opened with foot or beak by a demonstrator budgie. Observer birds had never seen these food dishes before.
Treatments:
Group 1 saw demonstrator use foot.
Group 2 saw demonstrator use beak.
Results:
Almost all Group 1 observer birds used foot.
Almost all Group 2 observer birds used beak.

Question 17

Okichoro the parrot - true imitatiom

Answer 17

Put Okichoro in a room alone with a video camera.
Every now and then a keeper went in and said “ciao”, “nod” or “look at my tongue” and made a suitable gesture.
Absolutely no reward was given to Okichoro for any response he might make – guarding against accidental instrumental learning.
The researchers then watched the video…
Okichoro, all on his own, practicing the moves with the appropriate words.
True imitation as shows new moves, unrewarded and too complex to be hit upon by accident.

Question 18

What is teaching?

Answer 18

when the demonstrator modifies its behaviour only in the presence of appropriate naïve observers and at some cost to itself.

Question 19

Give examples of teaching in animals and their costs

Answer 19

1. Cheetah - Mothers sometimes don’t choke prey but bring back for cubs to learn how to kill.
   Older cubs allowed to overtake mother and make the kill.
   Cost: danger of losing prey
   2) Chickens “food call” when they find food, but only if chicks are visible.
   Chicks come and peck to learn about that food.
   Cost to hen = delayed feeding and attracting predator’s attention.

Question 20

What is culture in animals?

Answer 20

behaviours present in some but not all groups of a given species, in which that pattern is not due to genetic or environmental causes, but because the behaviour has spread through social learning.
Also called traditions.

Question 21

How to test if something is a culture in animals

Answer 21

Add new individuals to group and see if they change their behaviour to be the same as the new group
Swap two groups into each other’s environment and show they don’t swap behaviours