Animal Behaviour- lecture 10-Imitation

how do animals do cultural transmission/social learning

partly through imitation- but quite difficult- need to understand mechanisms and imagine action from different angles

5 mechanisms of social learning that are mistaken for true imitation

1. instrumental learning

2. stimulus enhancement

3. social facilitation

4. contagion/observational learning

5. emulation

an example of poor experimental design that leads to instrumental learning confused with imitation

• imo- macaque- kawamura

• rice and potatoes on beach for monkey

• monkey realised he could wash sand off food- and sort rice out

• but- behaviour was rewarded

• it was actually stimulus enhancement from the sea and instrumental learning- carry food to get more food

what confuses interpretation of imitation

rewards- just trains it to do instrumental learning

what is stimulus enhancement

learning from others that an object is of interest- investigation of object

investigation of bottle opening by blue tits

• galef 1984

• demonstrator opened bottle

• give closed bottle to bird

• birds with no demonstrator opened it just as fast- stimulus enhancement- trial and error

social facilitation

carrying out already known behaviour when others are doing it too

contagion/observation condition- example

observer catches what mood demonstrator is in and copies its attitude towards something

• mob a predator because demonstrator did so

example of contagion/observational learning

1) preschool children did project

2) group 1 adult played calm with toys- ignored oll

3) group 2- played violently with doll

4) kids acted violently with violent demonstrator

emulation

animal understands goal of a behavioural sequence- gets to goal by own means by trial and error- but not imitating exact moves

example of emulation

• whiten 1996- mechanical fruit in chimps

• both chimps and children influenced by demonstrator- some degree of imitation

• but chimps- more likely to use emulation

example of experiment that suggests chimps can imitate

• whiten et al 2005

• trained 2 chimps with different techniques to get food from panpipes

• each group used own demonstrator technique

• imitation

what is true imitation

• animal learns new behaviour which lead to a goal by watching demonstrator carry out sequence of actions

what animal can imitate besides primates? example

• galef -budgies

• group 1 saw demonstrator use foot and group 2 saw demonstrator use beak

• budgies group 1 and 2 used foot and beak

another example of imitation 1992

• Moore- okichoro parrot

• parrot imitated moves and words

what is teaching

• demonstrator modifies its behaviour only in the presence of naive observers and at some cost to itself

teaching example

teaching in cheetah

• mothers don’t kill prey

• teach cubs to kill

• cost: danger of losing prey

do animals have culture? what is cultural behaviour

• one that is transmitted repeatedly through social/observation learning to become population level characteristic

example of guppy social learning

• 2 groups- learned different routes to food

• gradually replaced demonstrator with new fish

• cultural transmission by social learning

why is human culture more complex?

• innovations almost always spread on humans- not animals

• human cultures get more complex across generations

• human culture regulated environment- self reinforcing