Set 6 - Cultural and Traditional Learning

Emperor Penguins

Recognize each other in the dark through sound, and the males hold their babies between their feet until the females return

Seagulls

Recognize their nest on a cliff but not eggs or sedentary chicks

Animals have innate learning biases from

Higher chance of making certain associations based on prior and current knowledge to infer

Memory

Neuronal representation of information

Meadow Voles Males Territory

Includes all of his mates territories

Prairie and Pine Voles Territory

Shared with their mate

Meadow Vole vs Prairie Voles Navigation

Meadow voles consistently make less errors in mazes than both females and prairie

Place Cells

Cells in the hippocampus that through activity creates a map of space

Males have

Large hippocampi from travelling farther, and have bone structure that can handle increased mechanical loads for greater range

Men Psychology Reflect

Fitness benefits of taking risks

Women Psychology Reflect

Fitness costs of harm

In Twe

• Increased range size in men, associated with more children

• More spatial anxiety in women

• Men more likely to travel alone

Higher Testosterone in Utero

Better spatial memory

Taxi Drivers

Have increased hippocampus size after experience

Extensive GPS use

Decreases hippocampus size because decrease learning leads to decreased neuronal tissue devoted to spatial memory

Drivers using GPS

Ignorant to surroundings, failing to notice where they are or that they’ve passed somewhere twice

Alzheimer less common in

People who heavily rely on spatial memory

Associative Learning

New neuronal representation linking stimulus + state, or action + consequence

Non-Associative

Sensitization and habituation

Sensitization

Increase response to something after a prominent stimulus

Habituation

Decrease response to stimulus after repeated stimulus

Aplysia

Sensitive to touches after a jet of water

Test for Associative Learning

1. CS predicts US

2. No association at all

3. CS never predicts US

Each Associative Learning Group must have

1. Same proportion of CS with US and CS with no US

2. Same number of dissociated CS and US presentation

Bayes Theorem

Calculates probability that a test is positive, even when they might not actually have it

Uncertainty

Lack of knowledge about future occurrence of something or form

Coping with Uncertainty

Caution, alertness, sharing resources

Coping with Variation

Learning, sampling, accepting

Rescorla Wagner Model

Measures the chance in strength of association betwen CS and US

Rescorla Wagner Equation

V_t = a(x-V_t)

Weakness of Traditional Approaches to Learning

• Reflects lab protocols, not nature

• Ignores cognition

Another name for CS, US, CR, UR

• CS = stimulus

• US = relevant state

• CR = learned response

• UR = innate

Anticipatory Learning

Associating cues with even to adjust physiologically 

People will unfamiliar drinks

Gets more intoxicated because there are no familiar cues to physiologically counteract effect

Tandem Runs

Ants run in pairs for leader to show new food source, with follower tapping leader’s leg and they learn how to get to food faster

When follower was removed from leader

Leader would wait to keep going, especially if they were further into run

Cultural Transmission

Transfer of information from person to person through social learning or teaching, both within and between generation

Social Learning

Processing of learning by watching others

Japanese Monkey Imo

Washed sweet potatoes and wheat in water before eating, which peers learned through (maybe) social learning

Young Macques

Play with stones after eating, from females macaques who stacked rocks and knocked them down

Juvenile Monkeys Engage in

Short bouts of play involving vigorous action

Adult Monkey Engage in

Fewer, longer bouts of stone play, helping slow down cognitive degradation

Motor Training Hypothesis of Play

Stone play facilitates development of perceptual and cognitive skills

Local Enhancement

Model draws attention to environment by action that happens and observer learn on its own

Social Facilitation

Presence of model, regardless of what they’re doing, facilitates learning for observer

Capuchin Monkeys

More likely to eat novel food if other capuchins are around, especially if eating food tooI

Imitation

Observer learns a new behaviour by watching a demonstrator

Blue Tits and Milk Bottles

Watched others to open milk bottles, and preferred bottle caps with the same colour foiled they observed (local enhancemenmt) 

What brain areas are active during imitation?

Inferior frontal gyrus, dorsal and ventral premotor cortex 

Correspondence Problem

Knowing what to move to imitate model

Perspective Taking

Interpreting what to move based on POV

Male Elephants more likely to raid crops if

Individual is associated with crop raiders, even if its 2nd closest association and older

Copying

Observer repeats what it sees model doing, where copies is rewarded for behaviour, doesn’t have to be new

Females Fish are likely to

Copy mate choice of another female

When Mice observe mice being bitten by mice

They will have a fear response to stable flies on the first encounter by burying themselves

NMDA Receptor

Plays a role in neural plasticity

Blocking NMDA Receptor

Mice observers don’t show any fear response

Tradition

New behaviour emerging becomes common within group from social learning

Meerkat Demonstrator and Landmark

Temporarily preferred the landmark that demonstrator showed, but eventually explored other ones

Great Tits and Puzzle Box

Great tits taught over 400 birds to access food to solve the puzzle box, and they preferred the method that the demonstrator taught

Teaching

Instructor and student(s) learning from the teacher

Teacher

Change behaviour in presence of naive student, given a cost but benefits students in that they learn information faster than they otherwise would get it

Mother Cheetahs use Maternal encouragement for hunting by

• Knocking prey for kittens to teach

• Carrying back live prey

• Running slower to allow kittens to reach

Helpers in Meerkat Foraging Groups

Remove danger from food then present it to pups, and gradually wean them off

Proof Helpers Taught Pups

• Spent time monitoring pups after giving food

• Retrieve prey when pups lost food

• Modify scorpion after lost but later retrieved by pups

• Nudged pups to eat

Fairy Wren Mother

Emit vocal password to eggs to minimize food to parasitized youngs

Fairy Wren Call Tradeoff

More emittance creates a more accurate call, but increases nest predation

Opportunity Teaching

Teachers actively place students where they can learn new skills

Coaching

Teaching directly alters behaviour of student by praise or punishment

Modes of Cultural Transmission

• Vertical: information is transmitted across generation from parents to offspring

• Oblique: transfer of information across generation from adults not their parent

• Horizontal: transmission between same aged peer

Beaching in Shark Bay

Dolphin comes out of water, onto beach to catch fish and return to water

Beaching in US

1-6 dolphins isolate group of fish and herd them to the shore to catch them

Sponging 

Only female bottlenose dolphins use marine sponges to prove the seafloor for fish

Spongers associate with

Other spongers, young females learn from moms

Exposure to Adult Rhesus Monkeys showing fear from snakes

Young monkeys show similar fear response, which lessens if they see an adult showing on fear from snakes

Guppies will

Follow path to food source which they were taught by peers

Medium and Cactus Finches don’t interbreed

From different mating calls that they learn from their father through cultural transmission

Female Finches avoid

Calls similar to their fathers

Guppies will copy mate choice if

Orange colour is less than 40% difference, if higher they prefer the more orange males

Positive Correlation between

Brain size and innovation and tool use frequency

Innovations

Novel solutions to environmental and social problems

Birds with higher brain size to body ratio

More likely to thrive in new environments, and increased rate of innovation

What’s the main message?

Stone play sessions decrease but average time increases with age

What’s the main message?

Great tits preferred the solution their demonstrator used, and when it came back, birds still employed the same method

What’s the main message?

High cost for incubation calls

What’s the main message?

Male finch songs are positively correlated with their father and paternal grandfather

What’s the main message?

When males differed by small amounts of orange, copying other female’s mate choice overrode female’s innate preference for more orange

What’s the main message?

Positive correlation between executive brain ratio and innovations rate and social learning