Stimulus & Response

Question 1

What is stimulus filtering?

Answer 1

Responding to certain stimulus but ignoring others. (Female cattle ticks responding to light, warmth and butyric acid).

Question 2

What is central filtering?

Answer 2

Filtering that occurs in the Central Nervous system

Question 3

What is peripheral filtering?

Answer 3

Filtering that occurs in the Peripheral Nervous system

Question 4

Describe Lissman’s Study in 1958

Answer 4

Studied the magnetic sense of Nile Catfish. The fish were trained to accept food only when a magnetic field was present; a mild punishment was administered in they tried to take food without a magnetic field present. This is known as CONDITIONED DISCRIMINATION.

Question 5

Describe Lettvin et al’s study

Answer 5

5 classes of neurone in a frogs eye...
1) sustained edge detectors
2) moving spot detectors
3) moving contrast detectors
4) dimming detectors
5) darkness detectors
The feeding response was only triggered when moving spot detectors were triggered

Question 6

What is a Super Normal Stimulus (SNS)?

Answer 6

An artificial stimulus that is more effective at releasing a particular type of behaviour than a naturally occuring sign stimulus

Question 7

Describe Bruckner’s 1933 study

Answer 7

Investigated Mother Hens, and discovered they will only respond to a distress call of a chick, even when they cannot see it. However, they will not respond to a chick they can see in distress if they cannot hear it. This is known as an INNATE RELEASING MECHANISM

Question 8

Describe Tinbergen’s Study

Answer 8

Designed a particular Hawk/Goose shape that triggered different responses in baby chick when flown above them

Question 9

What is an Innate Releasing Mechanism

Answer 9

A special neuro-sensory mechanism that releases the reacton and is responsible for its own selective susceptibility to a special combination of sign stimuli.

Question 10

What are the problems with the idea of an Innate Releasing Mechanism?

Answer 10

1) There may be more than one response
2) Almost all behaviour is shown to have some kind of learned component
3) Some processing maybe going on in the Peripheral Nervous System
4) There may be other parsimonious explanations such as selective habituation

Question 11

What is a Fixed Action Pattern?

Answer 11

Some movements whose form seems to be independent of environmental stimuli, even though they may be elicited by such stimuli in the first place. They are largely inherited, resistant to change, and consistent in both form and duration.

Question 12

What is a Reaction Chain? Give one example

Answer 12

A relatively complex sequence of behaviour which consists of a series of separate but linked reactions to different sign stimuli.

e. g The Bee Wolf
1) Attracted to the sight of a bee-sized object
2) Hovers 10cm downwind (smells bee)
3) Grabs the object if it smells like a bee, but will only deliver a sting if it also feels like a bee

Question 13

Define the two orientations to stimuli

Answer 13

Kinesis - there is no orientation of the body axis in relation to the source of stimulation

Taxes - where the animal orients with respect to the stimulus.

Question 14

According to Frisch, during Honey Bee Menotaxis, when is a ‘Round Dance’ performed? And what behaviour does it stimulate?

Answer 14

When the food is less that 50m away, it causes the other worker bees to search for food in the near vicinity.

Question 15

According to Frisch, during Honey Bee Menotaxis, when is a ‘Waggle Dance’ performed?

Answer 15

When food is over 100m away. The direction of the food is marked in respect to the sun, and the faster the tempo of the dance, the closer the food.

Question 16

What are some weaknesses towards Frisch’s Honey Bee Menotaxis theory?

Answer 16

1) Some scientists were sceptical about the existence of such an abstract, sophisticated insect communication system.
2) Increasing evidence for bee olfaction surfaced
3) Attempts to engineer model bees that could dance proved unnaffective

Question 17

Who provided definitive proof that bees use dance as language?

Answer 17

Gould.

Question 18

Describe Gould’s experiment that proved bees use dance as language

Answer 18

If you shine a bright light into a hive, bees start to orientate their dances with respect to the light, not the sun.
If you paint over the ocelli of Honey Bees, they become 6x less sensitive to light
Forager bees who found a new food source had their ocelli painted over, and then returned to the hive to dance
A bright light was shone into the hive, that the forager bees could not detect (because of their painted ocelli)
Other bees who interpreted the dance, did it with respect to the aritifical light, not the sun.