Ethology Introduction: Psych 225

• Introductions to Ethology, Psych 225, presented by Rita Kanagat is the topic of the presentation

Course Topics

• Introduction to ethology will be covered
• Syllabus review
• Includes animal behavior, cognition, and ethology introduction
• Questions about the course
• Methods in animal behavior

About the Instructor

• Rita Kanagat's research focus is on animal communication and cognition
• She has been involved with dog, dolphin, and bird animal behavior research involving
• Holds a BA in Psychology from Carleton College
• Holds a MA in General Psychology from Montclair State University
• Holds a MA in Animal Behavior and Conservation from CUNY Hunter
• Currently a PhD student in the Cognitive and Comparative Psychology program at the CUNY Graduate Center

Course Goals

• Understand evolution as it relates to animal behavior.
• Develop research skills.
• Develop science writing skills.
• Learn the application of animal behavior

Hunter College Policy on Generative AI

• Generative AI tools can be used for research, brainstorming, and idea generation
• Students may use AI if their instructor permits it and they properly cite AI-generated content
• AI-generated text must be cited
• Using AI-generated te without attribution is academic dishonesty
• AI can produce incorrect or misleading information (hallucinations), so fact-check the output
• Submitting AI-generated work as your own, unless explicitly allowed, is considered a violation
• The presenters follow CUNY Guidelines and Use AI Responsibly!

Class Policy on Generative AI

• AI tools can be used for research, brainstorming, and idea generation
• Instructors are to be very clear on when it is acceptable to use LLMs or Generative AI for submitted assignments
• It is assumed that you cannot create any assignment you submit using machine learning unless specifically told
• Just like with plagiarizing from humans, students’ words need to be original

Ethology

• Ethology is the study of animal behaviors in relation to evolutionary pressures, genetics, physiological, ecological and neurological development
• Animal behavior is coordinated responses of whole living organisms to internal and/or external stimuli
• Behavior can be easily observable (eg., movement) or non-visible (eg., learning, secretion of pheromones)
• Challenges in studying animal behavior include the challenges of communicating with animals and working out what they are thinking
• It also takes a great deal of time to find answers to research questions

Animal Behavior in Academia

• The concept of animal behavior in academia was controversial because of anthropocentrism, the animals were not thought have thoughts or feelings
• Behavioral experiments yielded empirical data
• Animal cognition is now widely accepted

Foundations of the Field of Animal Behavior

• Charles Darwin proposed that behavior evolves through natural selection, shaping survival and reproduction
• George Romanes was an early advocate for animal cognition, though relied on anecdotal evidence
• Charles Turner was a pioneer in comparative psychology, using experimental and observational studies to analyze animal behavior systematically

Modern Approches to Animal Behavior

• Ethology is the study of behavior in natural environments (e.g., Tinbergen, Lorenz)
• Behavioral ecology explores how behaviors enhance survival and reproduction
• Neuroethology investigates the neural basis of behavior

Behaviorism

• John B. Watson founded behaviorism in 1913, emphasizing psychology should study observable behaviors and rejecting internal mental states
• Watson focused on stimulus-response associations and is known for the "Little Albert" experiment
• B.F. Skinner (1930s–1950s): Expanded behaviorism through operant conditioning, demonstrating how reinforcement and punishment shape behavior
• Skinner used rats and pigeons in Skinner boxes to emphasize learned behaviors

Aspects of Behaviorism

• Behaviorism holds that behavior is entirely shaped by the environment, minimizing genetic or innate biological influences
• Behaviorists like John Watson and B.F. Skinner argued that behavior is a product of conditioning
• Conditioning results from experiences, reinforcement, and stimuli in the environment
• This perspective downplayed the role of instincts, evolution, and internal mental states favoring "Environmental Determinism”
• Tabula Rasa is the Blank Slate Hypothesis

Behaviorism and Conditioning

• John Watson famously wanted to train infants to become any type of specialist
• This reflects extreme environmental determinism and suggests behavior is almost entirely learned with biology playing no role
• Pavlov showed in the 1900's how dogs could be conditioned to associate a stimulus (bell) with food, leading to a learned response (salivation)
• Skinner demonstrated how reinforcement (rewards/punishments) shapes behavior (1930s-1950s)
• Skinner argued that free will is an illusion because all behavior is a response to past conditioning.

Issues with Behaviorism

• Behaviorists denied or minimized innate behaviors (instincts)
• This contrasted with ethologists who showed that some behaviors occur even without prior learning
• Ethology is the scientific study of animal behavior in natural environments, developed as a response to the dominance of behaviorism in the early 20th century

Foundations of Ethology

• Ethologists, particularly in Europe, rejected environmental determinism, and argued that many behaviors were instinctive
• Instinctive behaviors are shaped by evolution
• Konrad Lorenz studied instinctive behaviors and imprinting in animals (e.g., geese following a parental figure)
• Niko Tinbergen developed the “Four Questions of Animal Behavior," which look at causation, development, evolution, and function
• Karl von Frisch discovered the language of bees through experiments on waggle dances

Cross-Cultural and Non-Academic Contributions to Ethology

• Indigenous communities have made critical behavioral observations
• Athabascan peoples of Alaska documented bird migration patterns before Western scientific literature
• Inuit have observations of Arctic animal migration and hunting strategies
• Australian Aboriginal knowledge of animal behaviors in ecosystem management has informed conservation strategies

Key Insights in Ethology

• Many behaviors are instinctive but can be modified by experience
• These are known as Innate vs. learned behaviors
• Fixed Action Patterns: Predictable, instinctive behavioral sequences triggered by specific stimuli
• Behavior in natural contexts: Ethology emphasizes studying animals in their natural environments

Contemporary Ethology

• Psychology and neuroscience now recognize that both the environment and biology interact in shaping behavior in the nature vs nurture debate
• Some behaviors are learned through conditioning, argued by behaviorists
• Some behaviors are innate and evolved, argued by ethologists
• It is now accepted that most behaviors involve a combination of both factors

Other Fields of Study

• Ethology has laid the foundation for behavioral ecology and neuroethology
• Ethology continues to shape animal welfare, animal conservation, and understanding of animal behavior
• Behavioral Ecology examines how ecological pressures shape behavioral adaptations
• Cognitive Ethology studies animal minds and the evolution of cognition

Evolution

• Evolution is the change in heritable traits of a population over successive generations
• Heritable traits are traits that are passed on from biological parent to offspring

Niko Tinbergen's 4 Questions

• What causes the behavior? (mechanisms)
• How does it develop during the lifetime of the animal?
• What is its survival value of the behavior?
• How did the behavior evolve? (evolutionary history)

Proximate vs. Ultimate Questions

• Proximate explores how a behavior occurs, and includes causation and development
• Ultimate explains why particular behaviors have evolved as adaptations, and include survival value and evolutionary history

Anthropomorphism

• Anthropomorphism is the interpretation of animal cognition, emotions, and behavior through a human lens
• This often involves attributing human traits, motivations, and emotions to non-human animals

Anthropomorphism is Harmful in Scientific Research

• Anthropomorphism can be harmful because errors can be made in the development of hypotheses or research questions
• It can lead to errors in data collection and interpretation
• Even without anthropomorphism there are ethical consequences of making assumptions on animal behaviors

Matters in Ethology

• Anthropomorphism can generates hypotheses about animal cognition and emotions, helps communicate animal behavior to the public, and encourages empathy and conservation efforts
• It can also lead to misinterpretation of animal motivations, risks imposing human-centric biases on scientific studies, and obscures objective analysis of instinctual and ecological behaviors

Example Anthropomorphism

• Believing a dog feels "guilt" when it may simply be responding to human body language
• Interpreting primate facial expressions as direct analogs to human emotions
• Assuming animals engage in behaviors for moral or emotional reasons similar to humans

What the Fluff Experiment

• The goal of the experiment was to investigate whether dogs show evidence for violation of expectation using the What the Fluff paradigm
• A Community Science approach, documenting and quantifying the types of behavioral changes between control and experimental conditions was used
• It was hypothesized that there would be a difference in the dogs' behavior in the experimental and control conditions after the blanket dropped
• No difference found between control and experimental conditions
• Potential issues were the need to look at the absence of behavior change more carefully, that the videos were not representative and other limitations
• The most common behavior after the drop was Moving Forward, regardless of condition
• There was a lack of controls for Smell, hearing, blanket weight, blanket drop time, trial time, and camera angles
• Possible familiarity with setting, because dogs were always at home with the owner and comfortable in the house

Balancing Anthropomorphism in Research

• Use empirical evidence rather than human intuition to assess animal cognition
• Recognize species-specific behaviors and avoid unwarranted human parallels
• Differentiate between emotional inference and observed behavior

Umwelt

• Umwelt is the term for components in an animal's environment that impact its behavior
• It encompasses the way that each animal perceives the world

Why Study Ethology?

• Ethology has conservation and welfare applications
• It is used to inform policy and drives conservation methods
• Welfare applications include domestic, zoo, free ranging, and farm animals

Conservation

• Activities designed to protect species from extinction, maintain and restoring habitats, and protecting biodiversity

Biodiversity

• It is the variety of life forms, their genetic differences, and ecosystems, which influence animal behavior
• It enables adaptation to environments, drives evolutionary and ecological interactions, and shapes communication, mating, foraging, and survival behaviors
• Genetic Diversity influences behavioral traits (e.g., bold vs. shy individuals)
• Species Diversity describes different species displaying varied behaviors (e.g., hunting strategies)
• Ecosystem Diversity influences how habitats impact animal interactions and survival

Biodiversity Examples

• Song learning in birds (e.g., zebra finches)
• Social structures in primates and pack animals
• Predator-prey adaptations across ecosystems

Invasive Species

• Nonnative species that establish a population in a habitat that they are not historically from
• They can cause harm to the environment

Example Impact of Invasive Species : European Starlings

• A common claim is that Eugene Schieffelin, released every bird mentioned in Shakespeare's into Central Park
• There is no strong historical evidence that Shakespeare was actually Schieffelin's primary motivation
• The American Acclimatization Society intended to introduce beneficial and aesthetically pleasing European species to America
• European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) were thus introduced into the U.S. by Schieffelin in 1890 and 1891
• The birds established themselves and have since spread across North America, numbering in the hundreds of millions
• Starlings compete with native cavity-nesting birds, such as eastern bluebirds, purple martins, and woodpeckers, for nesting sites
• This has lead to declines in native bird populations
• Starlings are vectors for various diseases that can affect humans and livestock costing $800 million annually
• Flocks of starlings pose aviation risks which has cost the US economy $7m

Sample Conservation Problems

• Geese landing on governor's island can damage the island, cause aggression towards humans, and impacts to biodiversity due to spread of invasive species
• Solutions to the island geese problem could be pest control methods, physical barriers, and/or dogs

Other Example Conservation Applications

• Measuring impact of an invasive species
• How to rewild an animal that is endangered
• How to prevent human wild life conflicts
• Reducing anthropogenic impact on animals

Ethology Impact on Animal Welfare

• The application of ethology encompasses all aspects of an animal's wellbeing and includes physical and mental health
• Ethology helps define farmed animal welfare, lab animal welfare, animal training metrics, vet care, and pet welfare

Animal Vision for Conservation

• Bird Vision may have impact on Conservation
• 647 birds reported dead or injured to NYC Audobon through dBird.org
• Bird vision could be incorporated into building design
• There is a Wild Bird Funds and Volunteer opportunities in NYC

How Study Ethology

• Steps to study ethology include
• Preliminary thoughts to form initial research questions and observations
• Form a relevant initial research question
• Using observations, research findings to develop a Hypothesis
• Collect the data through study
• Analysis the data obtained from study
• Report finding through writing
• Publish finding through peer reviewed publication

Preliminary Observations

• Collecting observations without bias
• Don't go in with a hypothesis, just observe!
• Find out what questions come up?
• What else has been written on the subject?
• What questions are still remaining about the behavior?
• Is there a unique angle to studying this if it's already been studied?

Hypothesis Development

• Hypotheses should be based on reasonable conclusions through preexisiting literature, evolutionary theories, or preliminary observations, and also testable

Data Collection Methods

• Observational Studies only require observation
• There is no manipulation from researcher
• Can require less equipment sometimes
• You don't need the animals to engage with
• Experimental Studies
• requires ethical considerations
• Consists of manipulation of variables
• Can be in the lab or in the field
• Wild Animals
• Constrains data on time, population, external variables

Data Analysis

• Data analysis allows conclusions to be drawn from a smaller sample size for Hypothesis testing
• A Null Hypothesis means there is no significant difference between metrics being studied (populations, treatments, etc.)
• A Positive Correlation in metrics means One variable increases in congruence with the other
• A Negative Correlation means one variable decreases while the other increases

Understanding the Null Hypothesis in Ethology

• The null hypothesis (Ho) is a statement that assumes no effect, difference, or relationship between variables in a study
• It Serves as the baseline assumption that researchers attempt to reject or fail to reject based on data
• The point of determining an Hypotheis Matters in Ethology is that It Provides a scientific baseline for testing behavioral hypotheses
• It also Helps prevent false positives and Ensures that results are not due to chance but reflect true behavioral mechanisms
• If data supports Ho a → No significant effect, behavior unchanged
• If data rejects Ho→ Significant effect detected, behaviour influence
• A P value < 0.05 often indicates rejection of Ho

Null Hypothesis - Example

• A hypothesis could be: Zebra finches exposed to a novel song will alter their song learning patterns
• The Null Hypothesis (Ho): Exposure to a novel song has no effect on song learning patterns
• Alternative Hypothesis (H₁): Exposure to a novel song does alter song learning patterns