Unit 1: Behavior in Context

Neuroscience

The study of the nervous system and the control of behavior

Behavior

Internally coordinated responses of whole living organisms to stimuli

Materiality

• The environment or the context of a behavior

• Consists the umbegung and the umwelt

Umbegung

The objective physical environment an organism resides in

Umwelt

An organism’s subjective interpretation of its physical environment

Agency

• An organism’s needs, wants, and purpose

• Described as a loop, not an arc, to serve a goal

Historicity

An organism’s past experiences or evolved tendencies

Tinbergen’s Four Questions

The categories used to explain animal behavior

Ontogeny

• Description of the development of a behavior and its genetic bias

• One of Tinbergen’s proximate (“how”) questions

Mechanism

• Description of structures and functions related to behavior

• One of Tinbergen’s proximate (“how”) questions

Phylogeny

• Reconstructed history of the behavior, both within and across species

• One of Tinbergen’s ultimate (“why”) questions

Adaptation

• Selective advantage(s) of a behavior

• One of Tinbergen’s ultimate (“why”) questions

Marr’s Three Levels of Analysis

A framework to understand complex processing systems

Computation