L8 Innate Behaviours

Question 1

What are innate behaviours?

Answer 1

Behaviours that are inbuilt into each species and which evolve across generations.

Question 2

What are the four different types of innate behaviour?

Answer 2

1. Reflexes
2. Kineses
3. Taxes
4. Fixed Action Patterns (FAP)

Question 3

What is a reflex?

Answer 3

A stereotyped form of response that occurs whenever a particular stimulus is presented.

Question 4

The central nervous system (CNS) plays a large part in regards to reflexes.

True or False

Answer 4

False

No CNS involvement is required for reflexes

Question 5

Describe the physiology behind how reflexes work.

Answer 5

A signal comes in from receptors to the spinal cord via input fibres, across a little inter-neurone and

then out via motor fibres to effector devices (e.g. muscles).

Question 6

Why are reflexes important in paediatrics?

Answer 6

The presence of certain reflexes at birth is an indicator of healthy development.

The persistence of primitive reflexes too long (over 6 months) can be an indicator of developmental problems.

Question 7

Define tropism

Answer 7

The turning of all or part of an organism in a particular direction in response to an external stimulus.

Question 8

What are Kineses (kinesis)?

Answer 8

Reflexes involving the whole body of an organism.

(kinesis is a sub-category of tropisms)

Question 9

What are ‘taxes’ (taxis)?

Answer 9

Directional behaviour of the whole body in response to a stimulus

Question 10

What are ‘fixed action patterns’ (FAPs)?

Answer 10

A very narrow range of behaviour which has certain specific characteristics which suggest they are evolved.

Question 11

What are the 6 specific characteristics that fixed action patterns consist of?

Answer 11

a) All members of the species produce them
b) They are adaptive
c) Activated only in specific contexts by specific, species-specific stimulus
d) The form of the response is identical within the species
e) The responses occur automatically when the key stimulus is present
f) The behaviour has evolved within a specific environmental context for a specific evolutionary purpose.

Question 12

How did Niko Tinbergen in his book The Study of Instinct argue what the best way to demonstrate the existence the existences of FAPs were?

Answer 12

a) Look for species-specific behaviour that seems to have some adaptive value.
b) See whether the behaviour could be automatically triggered or ‘released’ by a particular stimulus.

Question 13

What did Niko Tinbergen in his book The Study of Instinct name the stimulus or significant environmental characteristic that generates the FAP response?

Answer 13

the sign- or the releasing stimulus

Question 14

Greylag geese retrieving eggs that roll out of the nest by reaching beyond the egg and bringing the beak in while making small lateral movements to keep the egg upright is an example of what innate behaviour?

Answer 14

Fixed Action Patterns

Question 15

Knee-jerking when being tapped by a hammer

Pulling away when touching a hot surface

What type of innate behaviour are these two examples of?

Answer 15

Reflexes

Question 16

Maggots moving away from a bright light

Moths being attracted to lights

What type of innate behaviour are these an example of?

Answer 16

Taxes

Question 17

Animals stay stationary when placed in moist conditions

Animals in dryland tend to keep moving in an effort to find water

What type of innate behaviour are these two examples of?

Answer 17

Kinesis

Question 18

What type of experiment is used to test for innate behaviours?

Answer 18

Deprivation experiments

Question 19

What does a deprivation experiment that tests for innate behaviours involve?

Answer 19

Taking animals out of their natural habitat and environments at birth, raising them in isolate and seeing whether natural behaviours still emerge.

Question 20

How did Reiss (1954) test for whether female rats building nests before birth was an innate or learned behaviour?

What were the results?

Answer 20

He did a deprivation experiment.

He took the rats away from birth and then saw that the mother rats still tried to build a nest just before giving birth.

It was a FAP that a hormone is released that triggers a gene which signals the pattern of behaviour required.

Question 21

What did the Eibl-Eibesfeldt’s Squirrel Study’s show?

Answer 21

That squirrels in a lab when would still try to dig holes for their nuts even when deprived of soft ground to dig and when out of the elements. FAP behaviour.

Question 22

Describe how Zing-Yang Kuo (1930s) tested whether cats have a tendency to kill rats.

What did he conclude?

Answer 22

There were 3 groups of cats that were taken from birth

Group 1: Cat was alone away from other cats but in the presence of a rat pup.

Group 2: Raised alone exposed to neither rats nor cats

Group 3: Raised with rats and cats in a normal rat-killing environment

Conclusions: Rat-killing is not an innate behaviour, none of group 1 and only half of group 2 killed rats and all of group 3 killed rats.

Question 23

What are the two criticisms of deprivation experiments for testing innate behaviour?

Answer 23

1. The absence of instinctive behaviour could be due to the animal being ‘damaged’ in some way by being raised or kept in isolation.
2. You can’t always assume that isolated animals are incapable of learning.

Question 24

Human babies grabbing hold of long slender objects like fingers; babies sucking on nipple-shaped objects placed in their mouth; humans imitating yawning behaviour are examples of what type of innate behaviour?

Answer 24

Fixed Action Patterns

Question 25

What are **displacement behaviours**?

Answer 25

An inborn pervasive behaviour triggered by common circumstance, that occurs in conflict situations and seems to be unrelated to the conflict itself.

Question 26

What is a **conflict situation**?

Answer 26

When an animal has to choose between two courses of action and where one action prevents the other from happening (e.g., fight or flight)

Question 27

What are some human examples of displacement behaviours?

Answer 27

Yawning, fidgeting, scratching, drumming fingers etc. when nervous

Question 28

How did **Falk** (1930s) explain the existence of displacement behaviour?

Answer 28

Due to the animal's desire to delay its next response as either choice is undesirable. (e.g., run away from nest vs attacking predator)

Question 29

How did **Konrad Lorenz** in his **hydraulic model** argue for the existence of FAPs?

Answer 29

When animals are faced with certain critical circumstances energy potentials build up in the brain due to hormonal changes. These build up until the critical releasing stimulus is encountered and then the energy pours out and the FAP sequence is released automatically.

Question 30

What did **Lorenz** in his **hydraulic model** argue why displacement behaviour happens?

Answer 30

In conflict situations, the animal is faced with more than one **releasing stimulus** and so each inhibits the other. In this situation, the energy potential is eventually released and goes into whatever behaviour can be performed at the time.

Question 31

On what grounds has **Lorenz's** hydraulic model of FAP behaviour been challenged?

Answer 31

Animals don't tend to produce just any behaviour. **Andrew** (1956): Displacement drinking occurs because animals get a dry throat The hydraulic model has largely been discredited and more genetic explanations been advanced.

Question 32

What is **imprinting**?

Answer 32

A bond or attachment formed between young animals and a particular class of objects experienced during a **critical phase** of early development.

Question 33

Young ducks following the first moving object they see once they learn to walk is called \_\_\_ It is an example of what type of learning?

Answer 33

* *Filial Imprinting** * *Exposure learning** as the animal has to learn which stimulus it attaches to. It is also innate because the behaviour is hardwired into the animal.

Question 34

What is the **critical or sensitive period** in regards to imprinting?

Answer 34

The short period in the animal's development that when combined with certain stimuli the innate imprinting behaviour will occur.

Question 35

What is the purpose of imprinting?

Answer 35

a) Ensure species recognition b) The animal learns what object it should direct critical responses to (e.g., feeding, safety etc.) c) To ensure the animal sexually imprints on their own species so it is attracted to its own and can reproduce

Question 36

What did **Harlow** (1960) discover with his experiment on rhesus monkeys on the effects of depriving a monkey of its mother? What did this mean in regards to humans?

Answer 36

Monkeys who had been deprived of a mother displayed autistic tendencies (savage, unfeeling, treated young poorly). There is an approximate form of imprinting in primates (humans) that influence its capacity to nurture its young.

Question 37

What is **habituation?**

Answer 37

The tendency for responses to get progressively weaker in response to a repeated stimulus.

Question 38

What is an **orienting response**?

Answer 38

A response that signifies that attention is on a certain object.

Question 39

No longer hearing a train after living near train tracks after a few weeks is what type of conditioning?

Answer 39

**Habituation**

Question 40

What are 3 things about how habituation works that **Spencer (1960****)** discovered?

Answer 40

1. It occurs more rapidly when the stimulus is not all that strong anyway 2. The effect is strongest initially and then reaches the asymptotic level fairly quickly. 3. A stimulus can become important again if exposure is reduced altogether for a period