Lecture 4: Instincts and learning Flashcards
Cross reared Galah’s
-pink cockatoos hatch and rear Galah’s as well as own
Galah
Instinct= food begging and alarm calls
Learned (from Pink)= contact calls, slow sweeping wing beats, food preference
Sickleback courtship
-Instinct: sign stimuli
- female attracted by dance
- once laid eggs, male chases her away and guards nest
- rival male induces aggression
- same effect can be induces with a model: key stimulus is colour and position not shape
Fixed action patterns
-predictable patterns of behaviour triggered by a cue (sign stimulus)
- automatic and involuntary
- once triggered will go on till completion
Innate releasing mechanism
=neural sensorimotor interference that mediates between key/sign stimulus and action pattern
-stimulus recognition and localisation properties
should allow an animal to recognize and respond a behaviorally relevant object that the animal had never encountered before.
Babies and IRMs
- Suckling of objects placed in mouth
- Grasping of objects placed in hand
- Rooting: Touching cheek produces a side to side motion followed by suckling, when object located
- Swimming response when placed in water (up to 6 months)
activation of FAP’s by other animals
Rove beetle
- Rove beetle taps worker ant with antennae
- then touches worker ant’s mouthparts
- who then regurgitates food
Sooty tern nest
- new nest created near original
- egg removed to new one
- sooty tern continues to sit on old site
- orientating itself using landscape rather than position of egg
Male thynnine wasp
*habituation
- Male Thynnine wasp attracted to orchid by scent that mimics sex pheromone of female Thynnine wasp.
- Male Thynnine wasp catapulted into pollen bearing part of flower
-Male Thynnine wasps usually avaoud female-mimicking orchids. When these are introduced into an area the number of visits declines sharply over time
