Lecture 8 Flashcards
1
Q
What are the key principles for diet selection?
A
- Familiarity - eat what we know
- Reduction in neophobia - tendency to avoid foods that are new
- Learning determined by pos/neg consequences of consumption
2
Q
Can animals learn socially with food?
A
- Demonstrator rat eats coca flavoured food
- Observer animal interacts with demonstrator (no food left so no interaction with food)
- Observer prefers cocoa-flavoured to cinnamon flavour food without directly learning about the food
- Acquired preference that has only happened socially
- Effective for upto 4 hours between stages 1&2, works upto 12 hours between stage 2&3
- Reduction in neophobia or increase in familiarity
3
Q
What was a study looking at why they acquired this?
A
- Had the same experiment but varied how demonstrator rat is presented
- Demonstrator was anaesthetised and had either food powdered face or food in stomach
- Control: food powdered on a cotton wool pad, and food powdered on rear
- First two conditions where rat faced observer created social preference, controls did not
- Suggests you need exposure to breath of rat and smell of food together
- Pavlovian conditioning with smell of food CS, and smell of breath as US
4
Q
What was socially acquired aversion to food?
A
- When experienced cotton-top tamarin had been fed something bad, reacted badly = next time exposed to food, reacted as if it was bad
- Other members of the troop avoided said food even though they had not eaten it themselves
- This is found in monkeys, not in rats
5
Q
What is stimulus enhancement?
A
- Demonstrator or product of demonstrator expose an observer to stimulus that has an effect of the behaviour of the observer
- D fowl was shown colour cup had food, but other colours did not = approached correct cup
- Observers watched = did not see food, the learning etc, just the d linked to a cup
- When allowed to explore, they went to the same coloured cup
- Simple social processes can enhance individual learning
6
Q
What are social influences on mate selection?
A
- Show observer female two male quail, one was on its own, and the other had a female with it
- Then given a choice between both males = females chose the male accompanied by the female
- Done again with a male quail with female alone vs with a male = prefers female that has been alone
- Same learning experience but opposite things preferred
- Evolution: male needs to impregnate so picks the lonely one, female needs to get pregnant = chooses male that knows what is doing
- Quail does not need to understand why it is doing it - it Is instinct: doesn’t matter how they do it, as long as they do
7
Q
How is fear of predators learnt socially?
A
- Young monkeys did not fear snakes
- When they saw older monkeys being scared, they showed fear reaction too
- No innate fear of snakes in this species (zoo raised), let it observe another animal react fearfully to snakes will then react fearfully = social learning
8
Q
What is observational conditioning?
A
- Conditioning with stimulus provided by observation rather than direct exposure
- CS = snake, US = experienced monkey reacts fearfully, Unconditioned response = observer monkey reacts fearfully = CR = observer reacts fearfully
- When tried with a flower, observers did not have the observational fear = selective learning in learning
9
Q
What is the role of imitation?
A
Essential to human culture and pass on info generationally
10
Q
What was a study on blue tits?
A
- Small no of BT learnt to peck a milkbox = once it happened, this happened everywhere
- Not imitation: simply exposing the observers to open milk bottles = enough to spread behaviour = social facilitation = stimulus enhancement
- Group of Japanese macaques = nature reserves provided food to animals when necessary = sweet potatoes - dumped food nearby on a beach - did not like sandy sweet potato = washed it in the beach = spread learning
- Could be observational learning, or stimulus-response
- Transmission was not fast, more consistent with simpler mechanisms
11
Q
What were some lab studies?
A
- Rat in box = pulled lever to extract food
- Observer rat pulled lever faster = not proof of anything
12
Q
What is the Do as I do test?
A
- Chimps taught if they do as you do they get a reward = imitation
- Reward means it may not be imitation
13
Q
What is bidirectional control?
A
- Social fac is about drawing attention to part of env but doesnt specify what you do with env
- Demonstrator animal learns to move screen away to get food, fac argument says screen is important and works out how to move it
- If demonstrator learns how to move it one way, you would expect observers to move both ways, would they learn to move screen quickly or just learning from D
- In certain species: pigeons, dogs, rats imitate
- But the way the D interacts with stimulus matters e.g pushing from one side leaves a smell on one side of screen - if you clean apparatus very well, effect goes away = bidirectional procedure rules out simple fac, but is not perfect
14
Q
What is Two-action control
A
- D can either step or peck treadle
- Observers could move wherever but not exactly how demonstrator does
- Quail pass: they know it is important and learn to press the same way D = not just facilitation
15
Q
What is emulation?
A
- Not learning socially but D makes world move, and O watches the way world moves = learning is about the world and D creates the affordances
- Perhaps you do not need a D, you could move screen and O will learn = humans learn this way but no other species do
- Some animals can learn beyond fac
16
Q
What is associative learning theory via imitation?
A
- D pigeon is pecking and O pigeon is watching
- Pigeons produce behaviour randomly = whilst D pecks, O will also peck some of the time
- While O is observing, D gets rewards
- O is producing response & response is paired by observation by reward
- This explanation works if the response can be spontaneously produced, problem with novel responses
17
Q
What are mirror neurons?
A
- Several populations of neurons active when both do an action and when see the action performed
- Seeing actions could activate neurons that result in performing action = imitation = also works for novel situations
- Does not explain where neurons come from
- Mirror neurons can be found in many animals but not pigeons = they appear to imitate but they do not have them
- Mirror neurons may also be developed via associations as children do not have them, but develop them
18
Q
What is conditioned taste aversion? (2 studies)
A
- Flavours paired with illness are subsequently rejected = tend to be fast = learnt well with a delay
- Good with novel foods
- Study 1: Arranged equipment so that whenever rats drank, they would hear a click - taste and click combination, paired compound stimulus with either illness/shock
- With taste alone, animals that had compound of taste/clicks with illness avoided taste, those with the shock avoided the click not the food
- Study 2: Paired sucrose with LiCl or shock until Sucrose was avoided = shock needed 25 sessions, but 2 sessions with LiCl
- When re-exposed to sucrose, illness animals reacted as if it was disgusting, pain group still tasted nice
19
Q
Is there conditioned taste aversion in humans?
A
- Someone has a severe allergy to peanuts and when interviewed liked the taste of peanuts
- Someone not allergic but threw up after eating peanuts does not like the taste of peanuts whilst realising they are not dangerous
20
Q
What is the contrary evidence for flavour aversion?
A
- Evidence base is very thin
- Study 3: followed shock later as flavour lasts longer, found that food is then avoided too. As flavours persist longer, the CS lasts longer and outlast the US
- Study 4: Reported suppression of drinking in a context paired with illness - not a flavour
21
Q
What was Dom’s study?
A
- Group of lithium (illness), hypertonic (pain but no nausea but delivered by injection), isotonic
- Control group drinks happily
- Saline paired with pain/nausea do not drink the saline
- First time they drink sucrose = all groups like it (facial expression), but then they do not show those happy faces after the first trial
- Aversive reactions: First time sucrose = no reaction, control group never shows aversive reactions, hypertonic group do not produce aversive reactions = just avoid it, but illness group do produce reactions = saline tastes bad
- If you pair stimulus with pain and re-expose stimulus = animals freeze = animals have learnt response that is appropriate = not drinking it
- Special is the aversion
22
Q
What was Patricias study?
A
- Is taste aversion is unique: non-flavour cues should not work
- If you pair a non-flavour cue with illness = should not have these mechanisms
- Should not get blocking: if it is a taste-aversion mechanism, context should not get into it
- Pretrained group: context paired with lithium, non-pre-trained = saline, pretrained extinction = context with lithium
- Either left them in the home cage and learnt context leads to lithium, or extinguished that
- Tried to teach them an aversion to saccharin in that context
- In pre group = it should block learning saccharin = should not do if learning is based on food
- Other conditions, should not have blocked anything
- If you pair a context with lithium = animals present disgust
- When testing saccharin, group with lithium context, has not learnt to avoid saccharin = blocking via context
- F taste aversion is selective = should not have worked
