Observations

Question 1

Why do people use observational methods?

Answer 1

Questionnaires are limited applicability - there is only one species for language, they won’t work in the majority of organisms in the world

Apparatus limits generalisability - if behavioural measuring equipment is noticeable, results only apply to organisms that are habituated to that apparatus

Context dependent behaviour - context may be difficult to replicate in controlled environments - e.g. riot behaviour. May be interested in something you cannot study in the lab

Question 2

How many non linguistic species are there?

Answer 2

3,000,000+

Question 3

How have animals been studied in the past?

Answer 3

Chimp interacting with a keyboard through symbols - but lots of training required

Animals in Skinner box - every level pressed is objectively recorded, but not very detailed

Question 4

What is the apparatus used to discover?

Answer 4

It can be very sophisticated, can relate behaviour to internal ongoing processes

Question 5

Are observations subjective?

Answer 5

You need a subject to code it, but the behaviour physically exists. The patterns are objectively real

Question 6

What did Dave discover through observations?

Answer 6

That chimps could also point as well - created a coding scheme that pointing was a communicative signal

Question 7

What are the steps in observational research?

Answer 7

Split up into:

observational stream: ask, observe informally, choose measures, choose recording method, collect and analyse data

experimental stream: hypothesise, predict, design, experiment, analyse, interpret, PUBLISH

not a rigid approach

Question 8

How are the steps different in other research?

Answer 8

Sometimes people observe informally - find something out - then ask questions

Question 9

What did Dave find?

Answer 9

That all of the cage mates displayed the behaviour too, not just Clint

Only 2 showed the behaviour in the absence of humans - signals were socially directed

Question 10

What does ask questions refer too?

Answer 10

The more you know about the published literature, the more sophisticated the questions are, but if you are the first to ask a specific question, then even simple questions are scientifically valuable

Question 11

Why do you need to observe informally?

Answer 11

Libitum sampling - sitting around and watching the population of interest, learning the typicality of behaviour. Need to know your subject pool first, otherwise could skew the data

Question 12

Why do you need to choose methods?

Answer 12

You don’t want to code for behaviour that doesn’t directly answer the research question - answer the question ‘what to measure’

means someone else can use your coding scheme

Question 13

What does recording methods refer too?

Answer 13

Answers the questions: when and how do you sample behaviour

Question 14

What are the two ways of defining the measures?

Answer 14

Operational definitions - specify the physical requirements for coding a behaviour - e.g. a lever press by a rat

Ostensive definitions - provide examples through pictures or diagrams, along with written descriptions of the behaviour of interest (coordinated play versus solitary play - need to describe how you are differentiating between these?)

Question 15

How do you classify the measures?

Answer 15

Events - occurrences, usually of short duration - frequencies, am of times something happens

States - long duration events, such as sleep or play. Counting them in terms of duration

Question 16

What does ethogram mean?

Answer 16

Coding scheme

Question 17

What are the types of measures?

Answer 17

Latency 
Frequency
Rate
Duration
Proportion

Question 18

What does latency refer too?

Answer 18

How long a subject takes to respond to a stimulus

e.g. RT or the time between two events

Question 19

What does frequency refer too?

Answer 19

The total number of occurrences of a behaviour during the observational interval

problem: some people think on its own it isn’t informative, some think it should be expressed in terms of time but sometimes it is fine not to do this - e.g. when the observation interval is the same for all subjects and conditions

Question 20

What does rate refer too?

Answer 20

Frequency per unit time. Divide the frequency by the time: e.g. Clint pointed 167 in 18.4 hours so his pointing rate was 167/18.4 = 9 per hour

Question 21

What does duration refer too?

Answer 21

The total amount of time that a single occurrence is manifested during the observation interval

Question 22

What does proportion refer too?

Answer 22

The proportion of total time that a behaviour occurred or the proportion of total behaviours that particular behaviour occurred - e.g. if two gorillas spend 30 mins out of 45 in rough play, then they spent 30/45 or a proportion of .67 in play - not expressed in physical units such as time

Question 23

What are the scales of measurement?

Answer 23

Non parametric statistics:
Nominal - categorical, either fit in or don’t (gender)
Ordinal - ranking (dominance hierarchy)

Parametric statistics:
Interval - 0 is arbitrary, e.g. temperature, 0 doesn’t mean no heat
Ratio-interval - continuous (IQ rates, RT)

Question 24

What are sampling rules?

Answer 24

Specify which individual is sampled

Question 25

What are the types of sampling rules?

Answer 25

Ad libitum - informal watching of the research population, gain familiarity. Problem: tend to miss rate events of short duration and underestimate the contribution of smaller subjects

Focal sampling - a specific individual/unit is observed, problem: can be large bas if focal subject seeks privacy for behaviours

Scan sampling - number of individuals is sampled, in rapid succession, problem: rare events of short duration tend to be underestimated

Behaviour sampling - measure everything you see of an individual, overtime a behaviour occurs you measure it. bias: overestimating conspicuous events

Question 26

What are recording rules?

Answer 26

Specify how the behaviour is recorded

Question 27

What are the types of recording rules?

Answer 27

Time sampling - periodically samples behaviour: either instantaneous sampling (overtime an interval goes by, scan across and observe) and one-zero sampling (interval between time point which is important, give it a 1 if it occurs and 0 if not)
bias: can underestimate rare behaviours of short duration

continuous recording - record absolute frequencies and durations of behaviour, means fewer categories can be coded
bias: underestimate long-duration behaviours as these are more likely to occur at the end of recording session