Midterm Flashcards
What is learning?
Change in behaviour that occurs with an opportunity to practice
Why is learning contradictory?
Behaviour changes=learning
BUT
Learning is responsible for the change
What are two kinds of learning and their definitions?
Non associative-
Situation independent; single action for when task is stationary or best action when non stationary; single stimulus
Associative-
situation dependent; actions best for situation; relationship between two stimuli
Types of non associative learning.
Habituation
- stimulus becomes less effective the more times org responds
- distinguish between novel stimuli and others
- response to repeated stimulus decreases over time
- ex: don’t hear AC after it’s been running for a while
Sensitization
- Response increases with harmful stimuli
- One stimulus heightens response to other stimulus
- ex: people jumpy after disasters
Types of associative learning.
Classical conditioning
- links two or more stimuli and events
- famous- dog and bell from Pavlov; bell(no response)—> bell+food (response) —> bell(response)
- E1- conditional stimulus (bell)
- E2- usual stimulus/ reinforcer (food)
Operant conditioning
- animal has to do something to get reward
- if Rat pushes button then it gets food
- consequence of behaviour is food
How do ethologists vs psychologists look at learning behaviour?
Ethologists only observe
Psychologists use the types of learning as they are highly experimental
What’s the general process theory?(GTP)
What’s principle of equipotentiality?
Are these true?
GTP is E2 and E1 at same time
E1 more intense meaning faster learning
E2 increases which causes faster learning
Ep is anyone can learn anything
Aren’t true
Explain food adversion experiments
- If animal eats monarch butterfly they get sick and learn not to eat it anymore
- Long E1 and E2 interval
- Contradicts GPT
- Associates flavour with illness
What are age limits to learning?
-Older is harder to learn
What has come from nature vs nurture debate?
- Psychologists simplistic view from simple approach
- Ethologists more natural
- Meaning, we can’t know for sure how much of behaviour is genetic or env. Both important
What are innate behaviours?
Behaviours that don’t need to be practiced and therefore not learned
How do animals learn? How is behaviour passed on?
A) trial and error
B) copy
C) genetic
How do individuals of same species behave similar?
Same genetic makeup
How do bats not run into each other?
Echolocation
Make sound that bounces off stuff
What are three types of receptors?
1) Enteroreceptors- internal state of org
2) Proprioreceptors- relationship between body parts
3) Exteroreceptors- detect things outside body
Ex: lift cup ; arm says cup is half empty (prop) and eyes say it is half empty (extero)
What are five main things of vision?
1) Sensitivity
2) Resolution
3) Direction
4) Wavelength
5) Polarization
What is sensitivity vs resolution?
Sensitivity
- amount of lenses
- spiders
Resolution
- size of lens (diameter)
- see details
- big lens- smaller angle; see things closer; vertebrates
- Best- smaller lenses
How many mins do we need 1 photon of light to sense light?
45 mins
What’s a wavelength?
- The wave part of light
- larger intervals for larger numbers
What wavelength can’t insects see?
Who can see infrared?
Who can detect infared with nose pit?
Red
Rattlesnake
Bat heat sensitive
What colours can humans see?
Red (420), green(534), yellow(564)
What are two receptors in humans?
Cons and rods
Why do dogs have more rods than cones?
Rods are black and white.
What are two responses to stimuli?
Kinesis
-intensity of stimuli dictates movement
Taxis
-direction of stimuli dictates direction of movement
What are mechanical stimuli?
Touch
Vibration
Sound
What’s a sense cell?
What the stimuli triggers
What do vibrations allow animals to sense?
Size of prey
Attract mates
How is sound perceived?
Ear converts sound waves to action potential
What can sound show?
- Direction of sound
- Intensity
- Frequency of sound (women have higher frequency than males)
Sensitivity and resolution in sound?
Sensitivity- how high or low animal hears
Resolution- how well you can discriminate between frequencies
How do humans hear?
Sound hits eardrum Causes movement in three bones Hits oval window Fluid vibrations Hair in ear detect vibrations Send signals to brain of frequency
How do bats echo locate without damaging ears?
Can uncouple inner ear bones
Do low and high frequency sounds travel far or short?
Low far
High short
Active vs passive stimuli
Active- sound
Passive- vision
What’s electro sense?
Only in water
Detect diff change in fluid depending on object
Two types of olfaction
Taste- short range
Smell- long range
What info is provided by senses?
Directionality and source
What’s motivation?
Force behind seeking of a consumultary stimulus Force behind a behaviour Sex Thirst Food
Three types of motivation studies?
Observation
-Watch behaviour to stimulus
Manipulator
-stimulate manually and then watch (cut nerve and see what happens)
Modelling
1)flush toilet model- interaction between motivation and stimuli
2)graphical model
High mot= less stimulus needed
Low mot = more stimulus needed
How are hormones related to motivation?
Usually reproduction
Hormones are internal motivation for behaviour
Help tell time
What is communication?
- analyzing signals which produce certain activity and circumstance to which behaviour happens
- only occurs when response from receiver is altered
- interaction between signal and response
Two categories of communication
1) graded
- analog
- variability in signal
- how wide a dogs mouth is open
2) discreet
- digital
- on or off
- dog is mean or not mean
What is enrichment?
What are the six forms?
Method animals use to add info to signals they put out.
1) Fading time
- how long for signal to fade out or in
2) Distance
- how far signal travels
3) Duration
- how long something does something
4) Composite signals
- signals A B C
- some signals fit together; some have sequences
5) Metacommunication
- communication of other acts of communication
- nonverbal cues
6) Context
- situation communication is in
- same signal in diff contexts have diff meanings
Four ways to analyze communication?
1) Function
2) Evolution
3) Channel
4) Cost and benefit
What are four functions of communication?
- message- basic unit of communication
1) Recognition- Enable recognition of each other and self
2) Danger- alarm calls to warn each other of danger
3) Assembly and recruitment- calling members of group to do something (assembly) and using signals to direct member to specific spot (recruitment)
4) Sexual behaviour- advertisement, courtship, bonding, copulation, post copulation
What are the two origins of communication?
- Semanticization- more useful for communication
- Ritualized- how much behaviour to send signals
- movement altered to make it more effective
How are channels used in communication? (Five)
Nature of signal
1) Chemical
- pheromones
- cheap, long range, lifespan of signal long
- last long time to hard to switch signals
2) Acoustic
- flow around obstacles, low Cost, range, simple to make, fades quick, rapid transfer
- sound is directional, complex to receive, can eavesdrop
3) Tactile
- Intimacy she orgs know each other
4) Visual
- directionality, fast response,
- only useful under light, not useful by self
5) Electrical
- prey detection
- voltage gradient detectable
- works in dark, no eves-dropping, flow around objects
- only good in water
- short range
How are coats and benefits used in communication? Two approaches
Economic approach
Optimal foraging
-how animals feed to maximize energy needs
Two major costs to communication?
Predation
Energetic costs
How to measure Energy use.
Measure oxygen consumption and use stable isotopes
What is evolutionary stable strategies?
-When behaviour is adopted by an individual it can’t be invaded by another behaviour
How would evolutionary stable strategies effect evolution?
Depends on what competitor is doing to effect evolution
How does an individual decide fight or flight?
Competitors strength and individuals strength
Why don’t individuals cheat?
Hard to fake strength
Two ways animals exploit others?
Manipulation
-Actively changing victims behaviour
Mind reading
- Knowing what victim is going to do
- Predict things from communication
How are non selfish behaviours explained? (4 altruism hypothesis’s)
1) Mutualism
2) Deception- receiver tricks indv that does altruistic behaviour
3) Kin selection- parents do things that are benefitted to their offspring (genes passed down)
- relatives do this too
- coefficient of relatedness
- siblings may help parents raise young
- need to recognize kin
4) Reciprocal Altruism
- Indv A helps B and gets reciprocated at later time
- works when opportunity is high that two indv will meet again
- Vampire bats
Explain altruism of social insects
Helps queen breed
All share genes
Females are sterile so they help mother
Offspring will pass on genetic info by helping mother
What does natural selection favour?
Individuals better adapted to environment
Ethology vs psychology and when the converged
Ethology is natural, not experimental and causal
Psychology is lab controlled experiments. Framework for causal factors
Converged when Darwin’s theory of evolution and to be
What are the ways ethologists vs psychologists think animals behave a certain way?
Ethology- what causes the behaviour and stimuli?
-why does natural selection maintain behaviour?
Psych- how does behaviour develop?
-what’s the evolutionary history?
What are two ways of looking at evolution of behaviour?
Proximate
- how questions
- genetics
- learning
ultimate
- why questions
- evolutionary causes (advantage)
