Animal Behavior, Spatial Cognition, and Learning Mechanisms

Flashcards covering animal foraging, learning evolution, parent-offspring recognition in penguins and kittiwakes, sex differences in spatial navigation, hippocampal plasticity in taxi drivers, and educational memory effects.

Why does an inexperienced bumblebee sample many different flower species when it begins foraging?

Because the quality of pollen, nectar, and calories varies across different environments, an inexperienced bee must sample flowers to learn which sensory cues correspond to high-reward resources.

Under what environmental conditions is learning favored over an innate, genetically fixed trait?

Learning is favored when the environment changes between generations but remains sufficiently stable within an individual's lifetime for learned cues to be useful.

Why is a fixed genetic rule favored when an environment remains completely constant over generations?

It avoids the fitness costs associated with learning, such as reductions in longevity and fecundity.

Why is learning maladaptive in an environment that changes too rapidly and unpredictably?

Because information learned from prior experiences is worthless when each subsequent experience is completely different.

In the Garcia and Koelling experiment, which internal consequence was easily paired with the 'tasty water' (saccharin) cue?

Radiation, toxins, or sickness (upset stomach).

In the Garcia and Koelling experiment, which negative stimulus was readily associated with the 'bright-noisy water' (buzzer) cue?

Immediate or delayed shock (peripheral foot pain).

What evolutionary rationale explains innate biases in taste versus audiovisual aversion learning?

Natural selection favors pairing gustatory cues with illness because ingested foods cause poisoning, while audiovisual cues correlate with external dangers that cause peripheral physical injury.

According to the lecture notes, how long does a young chick wait for its parent to return from sea with food?

The chick waits $3\text{ days}$.

How do returning penguin parents locate their offspring inside a dense rookery?

They walk through the dense colony repeatedly emitting their specific call until their chick hears and answers it.

What physical actions does a penguin chick take when it detects its parent's specific call?

It tilts its head back, opens its beak, and answers with its own high-pitched, unique call to guide the adult directly to its location.

What is the critical survival consequence if a penguin chick fails to establish a unique vocal link with its parents?

Adults feed only their own biological chick; without this vocal link, the chick misses regurgitated food, starves, and will not survive the Antarctic winter.

What is the kittiwake's primary topographical 'rule of thumb' for identifying its offspring and territory?

"If it is on my exact ledge, it belongs to me."

Why did kittiwakes never face evolutionary pressure to develop egg-recognition capabilities?

Because nests are on narrow cliff ledges where an egg cannot roll into a neighbor's nest without falling to its destruction, leaving zero risk of egg-swapping.

Why must ground-nesting gulls learn to recognize the unique speckling patterns of their eggs?

Because on flat beaches or marshes, eggs can easily roll into neighboring nests or neighbors may attempt to push an egg into their territory.

How will a kittiwake respond if an experimenter places a painted rock or another bird's egg into its nest?

It will happily incubate it because it lacks the ability to recognize individual eggs.

What is the 'fixed-object' illusion regarding young kittiwake chicks?

Because chicks are completely immobile for their first few weeks to avoid falling, parents treat them like the nest itself—as a permanent, fixed object.

What occurs if an experimenter swaps a $10\text{-day-old}$ kittiwake chick with a neighbor's chick?

The parent birds will not notice the difference because individual chick recognition has not yet developed.

At what developmental milestone do parent kittiwakes switch to recognizing their offspring by voice?

Around the time chicks become mobile and begin fledging (learning to fly), which increases the risk of mixing up offspring.

How do spatial navigation error rates differ between sexes in meadow voles compared to prairie voles?

In polygynous meadow voles, females make significantly more errors than males, whereas in prairie voles, males and females make about the same amount of errors (difference is not statistically significant).

What sex-based difference exists in the hippocampal anatomy of meadow voles?

Male meadow voles have larger hippocampus sizes compared to females.

What three advantages do human males show on average when completing virtual $3\text{D}$ mazes?

Faster completion times, fewer navigation errors, and overall better wayfinding performance.

How do prenatal androgen levels affect spatial learning performance in rats?

Higher prenatal androgens predict fewer choices to reach a learning criterion (making tasks easier to learn), whereas lower prenatal androgens predict lower spatial performance.

In which human life stage do men NOT travel farther on average than women in hunter-gatherer societies?

Childhood.

In which age range is the largest difference in distance traveled between men and women observed in hunter-gatherer groups?

In the $20\text{--}40$ age range.

In broad cognitive ability comparisons between sexes, in which domain do women score higher on average than men?

Verbal ability.

How does the hippocampal volume of London taxi drivers compare to age-matched controls?

Taxi drivers have significantly greater cross-sectional area and volume in both the left and right hippocampus.

What longitudinal change in hippocampal grey matter volume occurred in trainee taxi drivers who passed their qualification test?

Trainees who qualified showed an increase in hippocampal grey matter volume at Time $2$, whereas non-qualifiers and controls showed no volume change.

Why was the spatial navigation memory test made intentionally difficult, with a top score of $54$?

To avoid a ceiling effect, where everyone scores $100\%$ and differences between experimental groups cannot be observed.

According to research by Dr. Hillary Mullet and colleagues, how does delaying feedback benefit long-term retention?

It leverages the spacing effect by forcing students to re-engage with material after a time gap, which cements concepts into long-term memory better than immediate feedback.

How does delaying feedback prevent students from relying on surface-level cognitive cues during assessments?

It stops a passive 'trial-and-error' loop of guessing answers until correct, requiring learners to evaluate their performance holistically and analyze patterns in their mistakes.