Innate & Learned behaviour

1. Innate & Learned behaviour

2. Scientists • Ethologists • Study behaviour of animals in their natural environment • Patterns of behaviour that affect an animal’s life • Psychologists • Study behaviour in an artificial environment • Collect data on learning & motivation that can’t be measured in the natural environment

3. E.3.1Distinguish between innate & learned behaviour Behaviour: the behaviour of an animal is the ways in which it reacts & relates to stimuli & the environment • Innate Behaviour • Instinctive – genetically based • Not modified by the individual • Uniform through population • Unaffected by environment • Beneficial behaviours product of natural selection: survival & reproduction • e.g. Suckling instinct in newborn, migration of blackcaps, hunting instinct in some dog • Learned Behaviour • Based on experience • Modified by trial and error • Affected by environment • Capacity to learn may be product of natural selection rather than specific behaviours • e.g. Dolphin learning to perform , learning to drive a car (not by the dolphin!), domestication of animals (dogs)

4. Innate behaviour • Can be performed in a certain order

5. Courtship and Display

6. Innate Behaviour • Spider spins web correctly first time • Wasp builds proper nest • Termites build mounds

7. Too what extent is human behaviour innate or learned? Learned behaviour

8. What other aspects of human nature might be innate in nature? • Morals? • Mate preference? • Altruism? • Religious beliefs? • Morals? • Sexual attraction?

9. How do we know learning has occurred? • Measured by performance • Stored in the nervous system

10. Summary of innate vs. learned behaviour

11. E.3.2 Design experiments to investigate innate behaviour in invertebrates, including either taxis or kinesis

12. Taxis Directed response to stimuli Moves toward the stimulus Moves away

13. Kinesis Innate non-directional response to stimulus (humidity,temperature, etc)

14. Orthokinesis Temperature in testing chamber is adjusted and behaviour of individuals is measured Floor of chamber has grid Movement is video recorded for controlled time Video played back, with number of squares crossed counted as movement in the time period Orthokinetic value calculated as number of squares crossed per second (mean of six runs)

15. Klinokinesis As previously, but with number of turns per unit time as the basis for the calculation of the orthokinetic value

16. E.3.3 Analyze data from invertebrate behaviour experiments in terms of the effect on chances of survival and reproduction

17. http://bioweb.wku.edu/courses/biol114/behavior/Pill_bug1.asp Go to above website and complete experiment

18. E.3.4 Discuss how the process of learning can improve the chance of survival

19. Learning allows the individual to adjust its behaviour as a response to the environment, giving an increased chance of survival Non-Associative Learning Habituation & sensitization Getting used to repeated stiumus, such as background noises (habituation) increased response to repeated stiumuls (sensitization)

20. Learning allows the individual to adjust its behaviour as a response to the environment, giving an increased chance of survival Associative Learning Observation, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, imprinting E.g. chimps learning to forage from parents (observation) Chimps display multiple tool use

21. Hoarding Singing

22. E.3.5 Outline Pavlov’s experiment into conditioning of dogs

23. Pavlov’s Experiment on Classical Conditioning • Classical conditioning is a method of associative learning. Ivan Pavlov trained dogs to alter their response to a stimulus, based on the dogs’ expected outcomes of the behaviour. Classical conditioning results in an automatic response to a stimulus.

24. Classical conditioning Blinking- reflex response Conditioning – neutral & unconditioned stimuli applied together (bell rings before hand waves) Conditioned stimulus & response – bell rings and person blinks • Unconditioned stimulus – waved hand • Unconditioned response – automatic response to a stiumuls (eye-blink) • Neutral stimulus – does not elicit response (bell ring)

25. PAVLOV’S EXPERIMENT

26. E.3.6 Outline the role of inheritance & learning in the development of birdsong in young birds

27. Operant conditioning Big Bang Theory

28. Learning of birdsong in young birds To what extent do cowbirds learn their song? Birdsong is a strong indicator of reproductive fitness. This leads to sexual selection – usually the female selects mates based on their perceived levels of reproductive fitness. Sexual selection leads to development of exaggerated traits – the bigger the better.

29. Birdsongs • Each bird has a species-specific song • Birds within a species have a varied song • Birds can learn to improve the songs they inherited • Thus, they have both inherited and learned components

30. Birdsongs • Birds sing due to their vocal organ (syrinx) • Bony structure at bottom of their trachea • Birds force air past a membrane in the syrinx which vibrates & results in sound • Birds control the pitch by altering the tension in the membranes • Generally females don’t sing

31. Birdsongs • Birds hatch with a “crude template” • Memorization phase • 1st 100 days = sensitive period • Motor phase – bird practices singing song he has heard (from his father) • Hears himself singing & shapes to meet his fathers • He must hear himself in order to sing correct adult song

32. Birdsong • One reason why captive birds are not reproductively successful (and might not even survive) in the wild is that they have not been imprinted with the correct mature song

33. Imprinting The process by which young animals become attached to their mother within the first day or so after hatching/birth

34. More about Imprinting • Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz won a Nobel prize for “discoveries in individual & social behavioural patterns”. His most famous work was on imprinting geese – by exposing hatchlings to himself at the early sensitive phase of development, they learned to follow him as a “mother figure.”