Lecture 5

Question 1

What is the behavioural ecology meaning of recognition?

Answer 1

To classify objects or other animals appropriately on first encounter
Can be innate or learned
Increases fitness of learners

Question 2

Habituation

Answer 2

Decrease in response of an unconditioned stimulus resulting from repeated stimulation
Non-associative learning
Can range from a single reflex to the behaviour of a whole animal
Primitive form of learning
Widespread form of behavioural plasticity
Changes behaviour so time and energy not wasted

Question 3

What determines habituation?

Answer 3

1. Timing of stimulations: shorter intervals often result in more habituation
2. Quality of the stimulus: how easily is the stimulus perceived, and what exactly is the response
3. Number of stimulations: responses are less noticeable with increasing number
4. Timing of testing: more time between habituation and testing allows dishabituation

Question 4

Adaptive value of habituation

Answer 4

Don’t waste time responding to stimuli that doesn’t need to be responded to

Question 5

Perceptual learning (mechanism of recognition learning)

Answer 5

Learning the characteristics of stimuli as distinct from learning their relationship to other stimuli
Perceptive learning both associative and discriminative
Involves relatively long-lasting improvement in performing perceptual tasks as a function of experience and practice
Common in higher vertebrates

Question 6

Imprinting

Answer 6

Phase sensitive learning that occurs at a particular stage or life stage that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of behaviour
Provides an animal with information on who they are and who they should mate/mix with
Important for social bonding

Question 7

Influences on imprinting

Answer 7

Duration of exposure
Type of stimulus
The ‘sensitive period’
Quite irreversible

Question 8

Model of imprinting

Answer 8

Bateson 1990
Analysis of stimuli
Recognition of similar traits, linking traits
Execution e.g. choose mate with similar traits

Question 9

Two forms of imprinting

Answer 9

1. Filial imprinting: a newborn animal acquired behavioural characteristics from another animal
2. Sexual imprinting: the process by which a young animal learns the characteristics of a desirable mate

Question 10

Sexual imprinting

Answer 10

Tearing environment influences mate choice
Choosing a mate with a similar phenotype to a parent allows accurate assortative mating
However, at sexual maturity individuals can be repelled by individuals with a similar phenotype, to promote outbreeding
Better described as a set of processes involved in acquisition of sexual preferences

Question 11

How might imprinting lead to speciation?

Answer 11

• Indigobirds are obligate brood parasites of African finch species
• Species show very specific host preferences
• Birds, as adults, have partly the same songs as their hosts
• If this song, and preference for the song in mates, is learned through imprinting, then imprinting may drive speciation
• Birds will reject their own species in favour of a host species