Learning - Animal Behavior - Exam 2

Define Individual Learning

relatively permanent change in behavior as a result of experience

Why is Individual Learning a type of phenotypic plasticity?

it’s a form of expression of different phenotypes from the same genotype, and depends on varying environmental conditions

Define Innate Behavior

a developmentally “fixed” response (instinct) that is released by simple stimuli

What are other types of innate behavior?

Reflexes, kinesis, taxis, fixed action pattern

Define Reflexes

Simple/short neural circuits

Define Kinesis

An undirected locomotion in response to stimulus

Define Taxis

A locomotion directed relative toward stimulus (ex. positive = toward stimulus, negative = away from stimulus)

• photo- (light), phono- (sound), geo- (earth/gravity), thigmo- (touch/contact), rheo- (flow/current), etc

Define Fixed Action Pattern

Released by simple cue called sign stimulus

What is an example of Fixed Action Pattern?

Herring gull chicks gravitate more toward gulls with red marks on their beaks, and significantly more so toward plain red pencils

What does Individual Learning depend on?

specialized features of the brain, which arise developmentally through interaction between genes and environment

What is an example of Individual Learning?

Imprinting: a young animal’s early social interactions, typically with parents, lead to learning

How does Imprinting work?

Genes in brain cells respond to information from social environment, or via genetic differences in the imprinting mechanism (eg. cross-fostering experiments with songbirds)

What are the 3 types of experiences that can lead to learning?

• Learning from single-stimulus experience

• Classical (Pavlovian) conditioning

• Operant (Instrumental) conditioning

What are the two basic forms of Single Stimulus?

Sensitization and Habituation

In terms of Single Stimulus, define Sensitization

Becomes more sensitive to a stimulus overtime and thus more likely to respond

In terms of Single Stimulus, define Habituation

Becomes less likely to respond to a stimulus over time

• Utilized by animal trainers, but can be problematic for experimental biology and conservation biology

Define Classical Conditioning

A paired presentation of two different types of stimuli causes an animal to form an association between them (presenting a dog with food to make them salivate and ringing a bell, so that the dog will eventually salivate at only the sound of the bell)

What is the blue stick example in terms of conditioning?

A blue stick is sprayed with cat odor and presented to a rat, invoking a fear response. Eventually the rat is conditioned to respond with fear to only the blue stick without cat odor present. And then the rat becomes used to seeing the blue stick overtime, and stops providing a fear response.

What is another example of conditioned response?

Proboscis Extension Reflex (PER); training honeybees to detect explosives

Define Operant Conditioning

Associate behavior with reward or punishment, then repeat or avoid that behavior for goal-directed learning

• Involves positive and negative reinforcement

In terms of Operant Conditioning, what is positive reinforcement?

Animal repeats behaviors associated with a reward

In terms of Operant Conditioning, what is negative reinforcement?

Animal stops behaviors associated with punishment

What is an example of an animal failing to learn a specific association?

Rats learn to associate taste with nausea (alert to toxic food) and sound to shock (predation response), but not taste-shock and sound-nausea, because the two associations are not biologically relevant

What is an example of an animal failing to learn taste aversion?

Vampire bats, which feed on blood, do not form taste aversion, whilst insectivorous bats, which feed on potentially poisonous insects, do.

What might learning enable an individual to do?

To use their experiences to make behavioral adjustments in variable environments, such as when male wasps’ visits to deceptive orchid decreaes once they learn there is no reward

What might happen if learning benefits differ for males and females?

Sex differences in learning skills may evolve

What is an example of learning varying across populations that have evolved under different environmental conditions?

Fish from a population experiencing high predation learn to avoid areas associated with predation and food quicker than fish from a population experiencing low predation

When should evolution favor learning over fixed responses?

When the environment is stable, fixed responses are cheaper, faster, and more reliable. Learning can be advantageous when the environment is variable, but if the environment changes constantly, then it may not be worthwhile.

Define Cultural Transmission

The transfer of information through social learning or teaching, which can operate between generations

What is an example of cultural transmission?

In a troop of Japanese macaques, infants learn how to wash potatoes by watching the adults

How does cultural transmission differ from individual learning?

It involves the spread of information from individual to individual and can be passed down through generations, with behavior spreading through a population quickly, or at least much faster than the act of natural selection changing the frequency of genes that code for specific behaviors

In the terms of cultural transmission, define meme

A meme is a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation (analogous to a gene)