Instinct and learning 2 Flashcards
Insight learning
*Ability to adapt past experiences that may involve different stimuli to solve a new problem.
*Highest, most complex form of learning
Combining past experiences to solve new challenges
Requires reasoning/intelligence
e.g. most dogs don’t know how to negotiate a large stick through a style – lack of insight learning
e.g. chimps learn to stack boxes and use a stick to retrieve a food item from the ceiling showing insight learning ability
Imitation learning
e.g. food washing behaviour in monkeys and raccoons or
milk bottle top pecking to access cream in UK birds
- Social learning
- Cultural transmission
- Within the same generation
- Rapid behaviour development
Play
A form of operant conditioning
*‘practice behaviour’? Often seen in juveniles – but also seen in some adults
*improve skills? appears to improve physical and social skills + coordination
*for exercise?
*learning to coordinate movements?
*learning social skills?
There is no instantaneous positive outcome of play – the play benefits the juvenile in adulthood so why do they perform it if they don’t know that they will benefit – does it give them joy in the practice of play?
Perhaps an emotional aspect
Can play be just for fun?
What is the adaptive value of fun?
- young cheetahs play with prey species
- ravens slide down snowy slopes seemingly for fun as it has no clear utility.
- Adult polar bears play by sliding down snowy slopes too.
Could play have a role in courtship?
Working memory of numerals in chimpanzees.
(Inoue S and Matsuzawa T, 2007)
Current Biology 17: R1004–R1005
Chimpanzee memory – assumed inferior to that of humans, but young chimpanzees have better working memory capability for numerical recollection than human adults!
what animals learn
*learning about food sources – best sources of nutrition
*habitat selection – nesting sites, foraging locations, best ambush areas to hunt prey etc.
*mating
*familial relationships
*aggression - how to engage in conflict
Learning where home is located
Learning & habitat selection example: orientation and migratory behaviour of fish
Often instinctive:
*Landmarks
*Celestial cues
*Electromagnetic fields
*Chemical cues
But also learning influences habitat choices (Dodson, 1988).
e.g. Juvenile salmon learn odours associated with their streams (Dittman et al., 1997)
Other examples of learning
*Red-capped Cardinals birds (Eason & stamps 2001) - riverbank species defend their territories by singing and use the best location within their territory to sing to make their call heard
*Otter spraint sites – find optimal locations to scent mark their territory
*Bighorn sheep - males fighting – utilising habitat to be uphill from their opponent to get greater force when they headbutt their opponent
Learning is usually Operant but sometimes Pavlovian
For example: in learning about your mate
For example:
Pavlovian learning & mate choice in Mongolian gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus) (Domjan et al., 2000).
A chemical communication that allows pair bonds to form
method:
*(1) males given olfactory cue (mint or lemon) then access to partners
*(2) male (control) group given odour, but no access to females
results:
*(1) Males learned to approach area where odour signaled access to female
*(2) control males - no such association
*females also learned to associate odour with presence their pairmates
*countering their hypothesis that sex differences in learning abilities should be related to male & female parental investment (Domjan and Hollis, 1988)
The reason?
Not much differential parental investment: Trivers (1974).
–very little male/female differences because the species is monogamous
Differences in spatial learning ability between monogamous and polygynous species
Observed in polygynous Meadow voles vs monogamous Prairie voles
Variances between sexes in spatial learning ability may depend on ‘social’ system
For example in Gaulin and Fitzgeralds study on voles (1989):
In a polygynous meadow voles:
–Male meadow voles make fewer mistakes in learning how to get through a maze than females.
–Polygynous species, males’ home ranges 4x larger than females.
BUT
No difference observed in prairie voles:
–Monogamous species with male & females home ranges of similar size
(Gaulin & FitzGerald 1989)
Learning about familial relationships
*Kin recognition – role for learning? (Hepper, 1991).
*Benefits: altruistic, cooperative behaviour, avoid inbreeding etc.
Example: Helpers at the nest. e.g.: young long-tailed tits (Aegithalos caudatus)
Long-tailed tits spend more time with kin than non-kin
In a study on long-tailed tits researchers observed chicks raised with genetic or foster parents.
Role of “churr” calls in long-tailed tits in learning familial relationships
- “churr” call - short-range communication in males & females, e.g. used in nest-building, aggression
*develops before young birds fledge & remains very consistent throughout lifetime
Study whether long-tailed tits learnt individual churr calls from adultd around them
results:
–(1) foster sibling calls about as similar as biological sibling calls
–(2) biological siblings raised apart had calls as dissimilar as calls of unrelated individuals
–(3) foster offspring & foster parent calls very similar,
–(4) calls of biological parents & their offspring were different when offspring raised by foster parents.
^Suggests role for learning in the development of churr calls.
Learning about aggression
Aggression:
–Intrinsic factors = traits that correlate with an animal’s fighting ability (Parker, 1974) e.g. size or agility
–Extrinsic factors = “winner - loser” effects – learning factor
Probability of winning is based on past outcomes & experience through learning.
Learnt aggression example: blue gourami fish
Learnt aggression example: blue gourami fish (Trichogaster trichopterus) Pavlovian conditioning experiment
(Hollis et al., 1995)
*(1) males: conditioned to associate a light with presence of another male
*(2) males: light ≠ other male presence (6hr delay from light -> intruder)
Could this lead to longterm winner-loser effect?
results:
in an actual contest the conditioned fish were far more likely to win initial encounter and subsequent encounter even in the absence of light cue
method:
2 contests involving the blue gourami:
first with light:
->trained males won
second without light against new intruders 3days later:
–>Males that won in contest 1 more likely to win in contest 2 (WW) than were males that had lost in contest 1 (LW).
conclusion:
males trained through conditioning more likely to win initial encounters & subsequent encounters even in absence of light cue.
why animals learn
To learn about biotic & abiotic components of environment
Many Benefits to this, including:
–distinguishing prey
–predators – hunting mode or not (Chivers et al., 1996).
–Social interactions
->optimise behaviour
An ability to learn should be under strong selection pressure.
