Animal behaviour methods

Observing, recording, measuring & evaluating

animal behaviour in psychology

• animal cognition

• animal sociality

• animal welfare

Observations

• must be replicatable

• if not repeatable → not ethical

what is behaviour

• The most observable response that an animal gives to a stimuli

  • observation is what gives us the data

• normally involves movement

• categorised by particular types

what is stimuli

• Events that cause an organism to perform an activity or start a reaction

types of behaviour

• states - long duration behaviours (can be timed)

• events - short duration behaviours (counted e.g displacement)

  • can be reported at the same time

• based on the importance of behaviour to individual

• bouts - short behaviours which are sequenced grouping of events into set pattern e.g courtship/driving

what does these behaviours tell us

• ethogram - list of behaviours (define & describe)

• time-activity budget → energy → motivation

• animal welfare - state of the individual infer via behavioural observations

  • can tell us about coping

social behaviours

• interaction/directed behaviours to another individual

Foraging behaviours

• set pattern that a species uses to locate & identify food

applied function of animal behaviour

• improving how we keep managed animals

• improving how we interact with animals that we use

• adding to our understanding of internal motivation & reasons for behavioural performance

animal welfare

• state of an individual as it attempts to cope w/enviroment (Broom, 1986)

pure function of animal behaviour

• evolutionary biology

• behavioural ecology

• cognition & consciousness

• human & animal comparisons

focal individual

• know the animal you are following

scan sample

• individuals in a group

• hard to identify

ethical review

• stringent process

• we have a ethical responsibility to protect the animals (duty of care)

• write your methods & submit for peer review

why behaviour in psychology

• evolutionary components to human behaviour

• cross species comparisons

• why do behaviours occur in the form they do

is behaviour in psychology a good option

• Highly-transferable research skills.

• Excellent training in collecting different forms of data.

• Rigorous experimental design and inferential evaluation

• Animal subjects wont suddenly decide to not participate in your experiment.

• Animal subjects can be managed in one place.

• Animal subjects provide a real insight into the human world.

• Animal research is covered by the same ethical processes, considerations and review as human research.

sampling techniques

• samping = who to follow & watch

• ad libitum

• focal = focus on one individual

• scan = scan a group at regular intervals

• behavioural = record occurence of particular behaviour

• continuous

• instantaneous

• one-zero = yes i saw it or no id didnt, good for rare for unsual behaviours

• event sampling for event behaviours

ad libitum

• all behaviours are recorded

• always best for designing an ethogram & working out behavioural complexity of the species that is going to be observed

• use for ethogram

recording techniques

• recording = how & when we observe/record information

• continuous

• instantaneous

• one-zero

continuous

• exact recording of behaviour as records each occurence

instantaneous

• divide sample period into short intervals & record behaviour on the time point

pseduoreplication

• behaviour recorded so closely together that behaviour doesn’t have chance to change

one-zero

• record whether behaviour has occurred in sample period

two basic approaches

• literature will help you decidie

• instantaneous focal/scan samplig

  • 0 no, 1 yes, 2 yes, 3 no

  • do you know the individual

• continuous focal sampling

  • exact record of behaviour

measures of behaviour

• frequency

• duration

• latency

• bout

frequency

• number of occurrences of the behaviour per unit of time

Duration

• the length of time for which single occurence of the behaviour last

Latency

• time from a specific stimulus to the first occurrence of behaviour

Bout

• a short period of a specific activity, normally intense, that can be timed

• will have a specific start & end point & latency between bouts is required for measurement

Time-activity budgets

• proportion of behaviours displayed during the study period

• a group of pigs watched for 5hrs

  • 15% of the time was spent foraging

  • 20% of time spent asleep

• express graphically to show how individuals expend energy on behaviour

  • shows us the importance of each activity

• run pilot study

• read papers detailing a similar species or similar research question before you start

• construct your ethogram before you begin

• base methods on precedent

when evaluating your data

• think question, not species

  • what element of behaviour are you studying

  • introduce species because that is what you are testing the question on

  • analyse your data using inferential analyses

• expand your discussion & conclusions to show application to the wider word

sample size

• is important

• as many subjects as possible

• as much data as possible

• stats & significance will depend on what you have watched/observed/counted

comparing animals

• One-sample t-test

  • good for comparing a treatment against a baseline.

• Paired t-test

  • good for comparing data from a population measured twice.

• You’ve measured behaviour in a range of sexes or age groups, and you want to see where a difference lies. Post-hoc tests for a one-way ANOVA. 

• Repeated measures testing

  • Really good models are available to provide a strong analysis of experiments using the same individuals.

summary

• seek out precedent & use the literature

• base your methods on those that are published

  • not plagarisms if you cirte em

• record states & events at the same time

• think about the question you want to answer & the most appropriate species to use to answer it

animal scientific procedures act 1986

• regulates all animals, governs the liscencing

• the 3 rs (Russell & birch) - how to minimise suffering

  • reduction

    • to the most statistically relevant

  • refinement

    • have you considered that the best species to use

      • why not humans, why not apes why not computure model

  • replacement