Lecture 8: Learning, Cognition & Culture

Question 1

What are the origins of behaviour?

Answer 1

• Innate (learned)
• Some learning (classical conditioning, operant conditioning)
• Cognitive (memory, problem solving).

Question 2

Define ‘innate releaser (sign stimulus)’.

Answer 2

An effective cue in releasing a specific behavioural pattern.

Question 3

Define ‘fixed action pattern’.

Answer 3

A sequence of innate behavioural acts that is essentially unchangeable and usually conducted to completion once started.

Question 4

Define ‘supernormal stimulus’.

Answer 4

A stimulus that elicits a stronger response than the stimulus for which it is evolved.

Question 5

Describe neural activity in terms of innate behaviour.

Answer 5

Neural circuits responsible for a behaviour may be fixed.

Question 6

Describe neural activity in terms of learned behaviour.

Answer 6

Neural circuit responsible for a behaviour may be flexible (allowing modification according to past experience).

Question 7

Give an example of an innate behaviour and the gene responsible.

Answer 7

Male drosophila courtship behaviour: chasing, licking, mounting, wing vibrations, abdomen curling… The Fru gene is responsible for learning more from experience i.e. to focus on females rather than males.

Question 8

Define ‘learning’.

Answer 8

A relatively permanent change in behaviour as a result of experience.

Question 9

Define ‘habituation’.

Answer 9

The continued presence of a stimulus causes the nervous system to down-regulate the response to the stimulus e.g. poking snails eye stalks.

Question 10

Define ‘sensitisation’.

Answer 10

Continued exposure to the stimulus causes an increased response.

Question 11

Define ‘associative learning’ and name the two kinds.

Answer 11

An external event becomes associated with an internal state or change in behaviour. Classical and operant conditioning.

Question 12

Define ‘classical conditioning’.

Answer 12

A new stimulus is substituted for one that is already associated with the behaviour.

Question 13

Define ‘operant conditioning’.

Answer 13

Animal associates its own behaviour with a reward or other consequence (trial and error learning).

Question 14

Define ‘observational learning’.

Answer 14

The animal learns by watching and imitating others.

Question 15

Define ‘local enhancement’.

Answer 15

The presence of another individual draws the observer’s attention to a (rewarding) location.

Question 16

Define ‘cognition’.

Answer 16

The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses

Question 17

What limits an animals cognitive ability?

Answer 17

• Perception/memory
• Data manipulation
• Forming a representation on the environment.

Question 18

Give examples of cognition.

Answer 18

• Numerical skills
• Spatial awareness (landmarks, memory)
• Tool use
• Individual recognition
• Self recognition.

Question 19

Define ‘animal culture’.

Answer 19

The evolution of non-genetic behaviours within a group via vertical and horizontal transmission (with modification) of social information.

Question 20

What are the common requirements of animal culture?

Answer 20

Social learning and tradition.

Question 21

Define ‘arbitrary behaviour’.

Answer 21

The behaviour is unlikely to be connected with evolved traits.

Question 22

Define the ‘ethnographic approach’.

Answer 22

Inter-population variation in behaviour that cannot be explained by environmental or genetic factors (i.e., adaptively and ecologically neutral/arbutrary).